Handlebars Creaking

[TrialsMan Dan]

Hey all,

Im usually pretty clued up on these things but this one has me stumped.

I have Inspired Arcade handlebars as fitted stock to my 2020 Hex. I have recently been having issues with a clicking sound coming from the handlebars and can often feel it when riding. I had this issue on my old Hex and solved it by thoroughly cleaning the stem faces and handlebar, applying teflon grease to the bolts then a small amount on the stem faces and then equally torquing bolts up to 5/6nm.

I tried the same trick with my new bike and hasn't solved it. I opted to try carbon gripper paste on the handlebar clamp and again carefully equally torquing to 5nm. Still no improvement. There is no movement from the bars as far as I can see, no cracks or stress marks. I've certainly never heard of Inspired handlebars snapping either so I'm pretty confident they are structurally sound. I can flex the bars slightly and get a little click same as I get when riding. Anything to be concerned with?

Any advice on what to do next would be appreciated!

[Daan]

Sounds familiar. Have you tried cleaning the stem/fork steerer interface, headset spacers and the headset races on the steerer too? I seem to recall with mine that eventually solved it.

[Stephen Morris]

My bars have creaked for 15 years.

[TrialsMan Dan]

2 hours ago, Daan said:

Sounds familiar. Have you tried cleaning the stem/fork steerer interface, headset spacers and the headset races on the steerer too? I seem to recall with mine that eventually solved it.

I haven't, but could give that a shot. Its still very clean with the bike only being 6 months old but i guess it wont do any harm. 

I definitely feel its through the handlebars though.

[Richie612]

I have creaks from the bottom bracket ( Sram dub ) but you just learn to accept it after a while. No bikes are completely silent mate. 

Tried everything but sometimes the tolerances in manufacture are just slightly off and end up creaking. 

Rich 

[Daan]

12 hours ago, TrialsMan Dan said:

I haven't, but could give that a shot. Its still very clean with the bike only being 6 months old but i guess it wont do any harm. 

I definitely feel its through the handlebars though.

Try a dab of grease below each bolt head as well. Also, I tighten mine more than 6 Nm, as occasionally I got my bar to rotate in the stem clamp on a not so smooth landing. And I totally get you, can't stand any creaks myself either

[Richie612]

Have you put pedal washers between your pedals and cranks? 

Seems a bit of a trivial thing but it helps a lot.

Rich 

[TrialsMan Dan]

On 24/04/2021 at 11:48 PM, Richie612 said:

Have you put pedal washers between your pedals and cranks? 

Seems a bit of a trivial thing but it helps a lot.

Rich 

Yes. Not sure how that would relate to the bars though. 

[Mark W]

On 22/04/2021 at 10:32 PM, Richie612 said:

I have creaks from the bottom bracket ( Sram dub ) but you just learn to accept it after a while.

You shouldn't have them - remove, regrease, re-tighten and they should go away. Worth noting the torque for the SRAM crank bolt is ridiculously high, so if you're a bit below that you may get some creaks from the crank. Either way, they should be quiet, creaking isn't a normal thing for that drivetrain.

[Richie612]

6 hours ago, TrialsMan Dan said:

Yes. Not sure how that would relate to the bars though. 

Creaks can travel along the whole bike since all the metal parts are linked together. 

The creak might originate in one spot and be heard somewhere different.

Rich 

[Richie612]

5 hours ago, Mark W said:

You shouldn't have them - remove, regrease, re-tighten and they should go away. Worth noting the torque for the SRAM crank bolt is ridiculously high, so if you're a bit below that you may get some creaks from the crank. Either way, they should be quiet, creaking isn't a normal thing for that drivetrain.

I have done exactly the above, creaks disappear for an hour or so then slowly come back which is disheartening. I even nipped up the bottom bracket shells a little more too.

The crank bolt does take a bit of muscle to get to torque but I guess that's due to the design of just one bolt holding the whole thing together.

In the future I'd like to change to a different design of Bb and crank but a bit unsure of which ones to go for since this Sram dub setup isn't very user friendly for me.

Rich 

[koxx sky 2]

On 4/22/2021 at 5:37 PM, TrialsMan Dan said:

Hey all,

Im usually pretty clued up on these things but this one has me stumped.

I have Inspired Arcade handlebars as fitted stock to my 2020 Hex. I have recently been having issues with a clicking sound coming from the handlebars and can often feel it when riding. I had this issue on my old Hex and solved it by thoroughly cleaning the stem faces and handlebar, applying teflon grease to the bolts then a small amount on the stem faces and then equally torquing bolts up to 5/6nm.

I tried the same trick with my new bike and hasn't solved it. I opted to try carbon gripper paste on the handlebar clamp and again carefully equally torquing to 5nm. Still no improvement. There is no movement from the bars as far as I can see, no cracks or stress marks. I've certainly never heard of Inspired handlebars snapping either so I'm pretty confident they are structurally sound. I can flex the bars slightly and get a little click same as I get when riding. Anything to be concerned with?

Any advice on what to do next would be appreciated!

I've seen a couple of inspired bars snap right next to where the stem clamps the bars. Could have possibly been from over tightening the stem though 

[TrialsMan Dan]

On 01/05/2021 at 3:52 AM, koxx sky 2 said:

I've seen a couple of inspired bars snap right next to where the stem clamps the bars. Could have possibly been from over tightening the stem though 

That fills me with a lot of confidence haha! I'm really surprised by that as I have never heard of them snapping. 

I may have over tightened slightly when first building the bike, so damage may have already been done 

I guess could be worth replacing them just in case though, it seems to have developed a bit more lately!

[Mark W]

12 hours ago, TrialsMan Dan said:

That fills me with a lot of confidence haha! I'm really surprised by that as I have never heard of them snapping. 

I've seen a few break, but it's worth bearing in mind the Arcade bars have been out for 7 years and are undoubtedly the most popular bar out there, so it's kind of inevitable that some will break at some point. I know how many bars TB used to sell every week (as aftermarket, not on complete bikes), and even just from the amount they sold the amount I've seen or heard of breaking is going to be a tiny, tiny fraction of a percent. When you factor in all the other shops and all the bars that came on bikes, they're still what I'd consider a super reliable bar.

As with anything, I'd always recommend visually checking the bars thoroughly around the bar clamp area to see if there are any warning signs going on there, but creaking from the front end is usually just something not being quite ideal in the bar/stem interface rather than a structural problem. One thing you can try is filing a very slight radius on the edge of the bar clamp area of your stem. Bars will always have some degree of flex to them, so there will be movement against the edge of the stem. If there just happens to be a very slight imperfection on the edge of that interface, it might lead to a creak. Filing the edge of the stem can help remove that potential issue, especially if you've already done things like greasing bolts and so on.