Why Does My Bike Squeak And Make Noise

Hey guys, Dustin here, CEO of Sixthreezero. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for watching.

All right, today we are going to talk about, answer a question I know you all want the answers to, why does my bike squeak? Or we can also say why does my bike make noise? Or what is that noise? What is that squeaking noise, what's going on?

Now with that said, I can't answer every specific squeak, noise, crumble that's going on, but I'm going to generally give you an idea of if your bike is squeaking, where do I think that noise is coming from? So let's go. So, when we generally deal or have an issue where someone is hearing a squeak or hearing a noise on their bikes, there are four main places to sort of look.

One is the seat. And that depends also on what type of seat if it has springs or doesn't have springs, but that's the first place.

Then we would look to the crank, the bottom bracket, the casing. So, inside where the crank arms are, there are bearings in there. A lot of times that can squeak and rub.

The other place would be the front hub and the rear hub. So, inside the wheels, there are bearings as well. So if those are rubbing, grinding, making noise, those are two places to look.

And then the derailleur. Now the derailleur isn't going to make a squeaking noise. It more so would make a grinding noise if the chain can't move or if potentially there's dirt or grime in the chain, it would cause the chains just not to run very smooth. So that's another place to look.

So, getting into all of these elements, when you look at if my bike's squeaking, you know if at home you want to diagnose it yourself. Now, if something is going on inside the wheels, like in the hubs of the wheels, my general suggestion is not to take those apart. If you're determined that that's where is the best solution for a situation like that would be to replace the entire wheel. Even when we get customers or people coming back to us with an issue with a wheel, we don't go in and try to repair the wheel. We generally just replace the wheel because it can become kind of messy and complicated.

Now, if this is like a 300 or $400 wheel, that's a whole different situation. But our wheel costs generally $20-50. So the amount of labor and time involved with replacing one bearing in a wheel, it's just better to replace the whole wheel.

So then moving down to the crank. Inside the crank, there can tend to be some squeaking or grinding or issues when people are peddling.

Now, this is another one where if we were to hear that noise, we would actually open up the crankset and take a look and maybe replace bearings or add some grease, do things like that.

For the at-home novice, there's probably some good videos on YouTube that could help guide you through that. But it is a little more difficult. I would put it above novice. So if you've never worked on a bike before, taking apart the bottom bracket is probably not something I would suggest. I would say bring that to a local bike shop and see if they could help diagnose it.

Now, generally, though it's not too difficult of a fix. If you hear that kind of noise in any of these locations, the bracket or the wheels, don't give up on your bike. It's not like the bike is a piece of crap, so to speak. It could just be a bearing went loose or grease didn't get packed in there. I'm not talking about Sixthreezero bikes in particular. I'm talking about any bike.

If you start hearing these noises, it's not like the whole bike has just gone to crap or something. It probably just requires a little bit of repair to fix. And a lot of times in the bottom bracket, maybe something just needs to be tightened a little bit more. It may come loose during riding and these aren't things to be alarmed by necessarily.

It's like a car. If your brakes start to squeak a little bit, it's not like the whole car's, you know, time to throw it out. You bring it in, they repair it, and the car drives like new most times. Right? I mean, obviously there are exceptions or there are lemons, things like that, but generally speaking.

Now looking at the seat, a lot of times the springs will squeak and depending on the type of seats you have, a lot of times there are screws that can be tightened that will tighten the springs and allow less flex, which a lot of times will eliminate the squeaking. Other times you could spray a little bit of WD-40 in there just to loosen up the springs a little bit and give them a little leeway. That helps as well.

So on the spring side, that's something you guys could tinker with yourselves and take a look and if you can't fix it, replacing the seat isn't too bad of a cost. It's something pretty inexpensive, 20, 30 bucks to replace a seat.

So, why is my bike squeaking? Generally one of those places, seat, bottom bracket, wheels or derailleur. Now, if the derailleur is grinding or not moving, that requires tuning of the derailleur and that's something that can be done at home. We send a lot of bikes out that require or have gears and sometimes people have to tune them. We have a video, there are lots of videos out there.

Sometimes it's just a simple turn of a screw and everything will be back in line. So, generally, this kind of noises don't mean something horrible. It just requires knowing the right tweak or the right repair to make to get everything in full operational order. So yeah, so if you have any questions, comments, thoughts, ideas, suggestions, please comment below. I'd love to hear them. If you know of any other places or reasons why the bike squeaks, please post it. I want to educate as many people as possible.

And if you want to contact us directly, email us, theteam@sixthreezero.com or call us (310) 982-2877. And our website, www.sixthreezero.com, S-I-X T-H-R-E-E Z-E-R-O .com all spelled out. And don't forget on our website we have a body fit tool. It's up there. Cruise over to our website. You can enter your height, weight, answer some questions, and we will suggest the right bike for your body. And we have a 365-day return policy. If you don't love your bike after 365 days of riding, you can send it back, no questions asked. Because at Sixthreezero, we want to make sure everybody loves their bike. Enjoy the ride. 

DISCLAIMER: The 365-day return policy mentioned in the video above is no longer valid. Please refer to www.sixthreezero.com/pages/30-day-test-ride for the updated policy.