Creaking front-end on trainer?

[ScottGoBlue]

Hello,

I just recently purchased a CycleOps Fluid 2 trainer and climbing block. This morning I took my first "ride" and about 30 minutes into my workout, I noted an intermittent creak. When I removed my weight from the handlebars it seemed to go away ... and when I replaced my hands, the creak returned. However, within about 10 minutes, the bike was creaking continuously, regardless of where my weight was distributed.

Could this creak be coming from my front-end? I didn't find any posts describing anything similar. I could check torques on my bars, stem and tighten my top cap. Or am I crazy ... and getting fooled by normal BB creaking? The creak was in sync with pedaling (seemed to creak when the bike leaned to the left side and I pushed on the left pedal).

Any help is appreciated, thanks, Scott

[NovemberDave]

There's a fairly high likelihood that it's your skewer. Shoot your skewer with some light lube (don't overdo it on clamping surfaces) and see if that works.

[sungod]

on a turbo the bike can't move under you, so there'll be different forces on it compared to normal riding, this could uncover some creaks you'd never get on the road

as above, check the skewers (rear one too)

don't assume it must be the front, i had an annoying creak that's i'd swear came from the front, it was actually the seatpost

[ScottGoBlue]

Thank you for the advice.

Is there any merit in having someone stick their ear by the bike to "listen" while I pedal? Like you guys said, sound location can be "deceiving."

Scott

[angrylegs]

Is there any merit in having someone stick their ear by the bike to "listen" while I pedal? Like you guys said, sound location can be "deceiving."

Can be. Creaks can be a pain to isolate. I had one and my mechanic and I couldn't find it, so on a group ride later that week we rode side by side and he asked me to try and recreate it. In my case it turned out to be the spokes all things. Where the spokes cross on the rear wheel some had a little grit in there, possibly also a very slight but mostly unnoticable groove or tendency to wish to stay at one location. When they moved under some load, a little creak occurred. I had tried everything too. Thise was fixed pretty much premanently with just a dash of lube at the crossing points.

Mostly just go through the likely suspects. You'll often find it this way. Check, clean and re-lube (or put new carbon assembly paste in, depending on what we're talking about) skewers, seat post, and seat post bolts. Check the tension of the crank bolts and possibly remove and re-lube those. Most times I've found it to just be one of these things.

[Geoff]

Could also be a crack in the stem. I had a similar experience. When I took the stem apart, there was a hairline crack starting to spread down the entire length inside the bottom of the stem. Good thing we have ears...