my bike is creaking

We get a lot of folks in here at Redstone that are annoyed by creaky bikes. I'm not going to write an entire tech article about it - there's lots of websites out there that explain tech stuff better than I - but here's a few things to look for.

9 times out of 10, creaks are caused by dirt. A clean bike is a happy bike. Rarely is something creaking because it needs to be lubed. Generally speaking, the opposite is true. Follow this logic - most bikes have sealed bearings in suspension pivots, etc. The lube is in the bearings, not the pivot bolts. Bolts and metal/metal interfaces must be clean and tight for the thing to work properly. Lube attracts dirt. Dirt makes things creak. If you put lube on a suspension pivot, it will be a dirt magnet. Remember, dirt makes things creak. If you can isolate a creak to a suspension pivot or link, take it apart, clean it thoroughly, and put it back together dry.

Here's a few others. This bike was creaky under power and the bb has been pulled relatively recently. When I decreak a drivetrain, I almost always start by pulling the bottom bracket, cleaning, regreasing (yes, use LOTS of grease on the bb threads) and re-assembling. If it still creaks, keep exploring. Some out of the stand testing revealed that a creak was coming somewhere from the top of the bike. We pulled the post out of the frame and pulled the seat collar off to find lots of gritty sand particles. We cleaned everything up, including the binder bolt, and put 'er all back together (yes, grease your seatpost, too). The creak was less, but still there. Look at what we found on the saddle clamp...

Once we got that back together, the creaking seems to have been silenced. But there was still creaking in the front end. Simple disassembly of the stem/bar interface showed this:

Putting it back together, again, made things better but not 100%. From that point, we pulled the stem and headset spacers, even took the fork out. EVERYTHING had this gritty sand in it so we pulled the hs bearings from their cups and cleaned absolutely everything spotless. Guess what? Creaks are gone!

Creaks can be hard to diagnose and even harder to solve but hopefully some of this will help you on your way to decreaking your bike.

Tomac Flint 29er SS

New bike day is always a good day. Today I said goodbye to my old friend, the GT Peace 9er. It was steel, real, heavy, and rode great. I traded it for a 2011 Tomac Flint 29er. I also put on an Easton EC90 carbon post and Truvativ Stylo 1.1 GXP cranks. The new parts and the new frame saved me about 3lbs. I do believe that'll be noticeable, and hopefully, the ride of this aluminum frame will be as comfortable as I'd like. Fingers crossed.

The Flint uses AN6 aluminum and has a custom butted main triangle to save weight and to yeild a more supple ride.

It also comes with 3 bottle mounts. Better yet, is that the large frame gives me enough clearance that I can go back to running my flask!
The sweet Bushnell bottom bracket lets me use this sucker as a geared or single speed. SS please.
I'm looking forward to getting out on it. Too bad for my bum ankle, though, as I'm more excited about the new SS than my cankle!

Redstone shirts are in!

And... We didn't forget about the ladies this time!

Couple of Trailwork Opportunities this Weekend

First off, BMA has been partnering with Boulder County Open Space to do some touch ups on the Wapiti Trail at Heil Ranch. It's coming along nicely - busting ruts, armoring historically problematic wet areas, etc. They're looking for more help this coming Sat, 4/16. Start off around 8 or so, ending time is a few hours past that. More info here if you're interested.

In other exciting, news, the gracious hosts at Glacier View Ranch, outside of Ward, are working on building 7+ miles of singletrack that circumnavigates their land. They are looking for help and it will be open to the public. Now here's the really cool part. You want all day long mega epic rides? This area ties in directly to Raymond, Miller Rock, Cerain St Vrain, and all of those parts just east of the Peak to Peak. More info is here. The Maintenance Ranger, Austen, is organizing trail days this Sunday at 8ish as well as the following Sunday. We're trying to get a crew rallied to go up there this Sunday. Interested? Let me know!

News is news

Longmont bike night is this week, with movies both on Thursday and Friday!

http://longmontbikenight.blogspot.com/

They'll be showing Ride the Divide at the Dickens Opera House on Thurs. Bicycle Dreams will be shown Friday at the Vance Brand auditorium. Dickens Opera house is a pub and Vance Brand is a school, so you can, uh, guess what that means. Help these boys out, proceeds go to Bicycle Longmont goodness.

How's this sound like for a fun race, Crusher in the Tushar. Damn that looks fun. And hard. Could be good preperations for Gravel Worlds 2011, if you're into that kind of gravel grinding pain.

Tuesday ride is coming up. How about a little of this?

Bike shop at 5:30 and we'll drive from there. Bring lights, it's going to get dark.

Pro Downhill Bike Bling, aka Sam's new ride!

In case you haven't heard, our very own Sam Powers has got himself a sweet new PRO sponsorship! The Marzocchi Go Pro Team is 3 young fellas that just graduated out of the junior world to learn a few things and eventually kill it on the pro downhill tour.

Being sponsored by Intense/Marzocchi/Shimano doesn't suck either. Definitely no suckage here. Check Sam's sweet new Intense M9. DAyum!

Good luck in your first pro year Sam. And thanks for letting us drool over your badass new Intense M9 :)

adjustable dropouts

super pimpy and light downhill air shock from Marzocchi

Can't be pro without your own name on a sticker

Been a while

Been a while since the last update, hasn't it? Fortunately, I've been able to get out on the bike a little bit. That's good, because I've actually got a couple of (cough cough) races coming up! 18 hours of Fruita on a singlespeed Oskar Blues team should prove to be fun. And maybe a little painful. Maybe the Reeb will help, eh? So I've been riding.

Temps and weather has generally been mild. I guess Spring is here, too. In some ways, you can only tell that Spring is here only by the fact that Winter has been noticeably absent. But it's not exactly green and full of Spring life yet.

But that will come.

Our buddy Farid from Singletrack maps was by with his absolute newest creation. Get your hands on them while you can. Singletrack makes some killer maps. Most importantly, they are maps of places that aren't available elsewhere. Check the latest - Ft. Collins and Lyons. It's got all of the Lyons area stuff, including a little bit of Lion Gulch. More importantly, this is the best map I've seen of Devil's Backbone, Blue Sky, Horsetooth, Lory St. Park, etc. I love me some maps and this is my new favorite. Speaking of maps, our map room is coming along nicely, too. Come check it out!



Oh, and Tuesday rides are in full effect for the "season." I still don't get that terminology, but others use it so why not, right? Kinda reminds me of my favorite Yoda quote - "Do or do not, there is no try." There is no bike "season" in my world.
Many of you have been fortunate enough to come in the shop to have our new doggy, Bella bark her arse off at you. Well, she's new so hopefully she'll come around. She's only 8mo old, too, so there's not a lot of chilling in her yet. And in case you're wondering, she's going to make a killer trail dog!
It's been windy out there, too. Remember, now that some forested riding has thawed out, you're only allowed to whine about wind if you're on the road. Otherwise, find some trees or a gulch or something and you're all set. Wind - bah, humbug wind.