noise from cassette

[simonineaston]

'dolby'

Ha Ha - I get it now - noise reduction... Bit Slow there...

[squeaker]

BTW I really can't stand noisy freewheels...

+1, but they have their advantages on shared use paths

[simonineaston]

I'm being a bit of a woose,really - I'm off to Brittany soon and my experience is that the farm dog, (at least the big one, the chaser - there's always 2 in a Breton farm-yard, the big one and the little one which belongs to Maman and is off-white, short, yappy and too lazy to chase cyclists...) keeps one ear open for approaching cyclists and a dead-give-away is a loudly clicking free-wheel - the quieter, the better in my opinion!

[Vantage]

I noticed mine gets a lot noisier a couple rides after a good wash. I find that squirting some cheapo Asda multi spray oil around the cassettes seals quietens it down a bit when the stuff eventually works it's way into the body. Doesn't always work though oddly enough.
I absolutely hate rattles, squeaks and any kind of transmission noise from the bike.

[Brucey]

Many IGHs use a pair of pawls to transmit the drive. Unfortunately it is the nature of the beast that the two pawls don't click over at exactly the same time when the ratchet is reversed, thus occasionally only one pawl takes up the drive when required. The result is that in many IGHs (from a number of manufacturers) there is occasionally a skip; one pawl will slip out of drive if it is asked to transmit all the load.

Usually this happens a few seconds after an upshift. In some hubs this characteristic naturally reduces over time, but in others (some SRAM) it just gets worse and worse.

hh

cheers

[Mick F]

Get yourself a Campag rear hub - Record/Chorus.
Mine is almost silent.

[Brucey]

BTW I really can't stand noisy freewheels...

+1, but they have their advantages on shared use paths

so does a bell...

cheers

[foxyrider]

Get yourself a Campag rear hub - Record/Chorus.
Mine is almost silent.

I second that and my Fulcrum wheels are pretty quiet too, they no doubt use the same freehub.

[Brucey]

check before you buy though; they are not all built the same...

cheers

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

BTW I really can't stand noisy freewheels; when I was a kid and I wanted a noise like that I could stick something in the spokes.....

cheers

Clothes pegs and cardboard

[andrewjoseph]

noisy freewheel in front helps me not crash when my wife stops pedaling and i'm looking elsewhere!

[lescargo]

Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good!
When a now, totally blind stoker friend, was finally losing his sight his father
got a bike with a Surmey-Ardher hub so that they could continue cycling together.
Humbling isn't it.
Myself, I do find even with industry damaged hearing, the noise from SRAM and CAMPAG cassettes irritating.
Nice noises on the bike?
Reminiscing, probably misplaced nostalgia,being in a bunch surrounded by "board-hard tubs" drumming on a good surface!

[helmbarrie]

Can anyone tell me why the more expensive road bikes have cassettes that are noisy. Cheaper ones in my experience are silent. The one advantage of the noisy one is freewheeling is as good as a bell to alert walkers on towpaths.

[Brucey]

its just the type of spring/pawl that are used in the freewheel. Early campag record freehubs and nearly all Hope ones (plus their many imitators) have used strong coil springs behind solid pawls, and this is noisy. You can't help but have a strong force variation with this spring type. Other spring designs produce a lower and more constant force, and this makes for a quieter freewheel. Even campag changed theirs in the end, the current record freehub is pretty quiet.

cheers

[Ray]

Resurrecting this thread in the hope of enlightenment.

I've got a new bike with DT Swiss Spline wheels, having used exclusively Shimano for many years. The wheels are light, and run fast and true, but with the irritating (to me) characteristic of a loud tick-over; think Campag, Hope etc. OK, I can perhaps get used to the clockwork sound, but more disturbing is the occasional (perhaps a couple of times per ride) cracking/clicking sound, usually, but not always, as I take up the drive after freewheeling. It seems to come from the ratchet/pawl mechanism, and is something I have heard very occasionally from Shimano hubs. I can't detect any sign of the mechanism 'missing' as I pedal. The wheels remain dead true, so it's not a broken spoke - although the noise is sharp enough to suggest that possibility. Also, the hub bearings are smooth and free-running. And it's perhaps worth adding that I'm a lightweight 76 yo who uses low gears - no Andre Greipel pushing 2000w throught the transmission!

Any ideas what is causing it? Should I be concerned? How about lubricating the freehub body, with the possible added advantage of quietening the tick-over?

Thoughts and suggestions gratefully received. Thanks.