First question on the forum, and recent TR adopter here.
I started training on a turbo trainer (and joined TR) just 2 weeks ago. I set my carbon mountain bike up on the turbo trainer as I don’t have a road bike, took the ramp test, and the next day did my first training session. No problems there. On my second training session I started to hear clonking sounds from my bike, that sounded like they were coming from the general area of the bottom bracket. They were timed to my pedalling cadence, and would show up for a few minutes, then go away. The sound is what I would imagine the internal cables hitting the inside of the downtube would sound like.
There is no play in the bottom bracket, and I cannot hear any sound when I ride the bike outside, so I’m wondering if at certain pedalling cadences I’m producing some resonant frequency that makes the cables (all internal) move and hit the downtube rhythmically.
Early in the week I took my carbon bike off the turbo trainer and put on an old aluminium mountain bike I have. I’ve ridden it for three sessions, and low and behold, at times during the ride I will also get rhythmic sounds in time with my cadence, only this time they sound like clink clink clink, cos the tubes are aluminium. The curious thing here is that this bike has all external cables, and they run along the top tube, so I can hold them down with my hand and confirm that they’re not vibrating and hitting the tube.
Has anyone else experienced this or something similar?
I’m for sure not an expert, but I have weird noises from my Elite Suito quite often. For me it seems to be coming from the trainer’s flywheel, I’m guessing from being not quite perfectly balanced. I’ll get it dialed in by balancing the trainer and then eventually it will move after a while and the noise will start up again.
I just kinda live with my noise at this point, although sometimes I’ll realize that I’m leaning a bit to one side to quiet the noise down, which is probably not a great idea for my training!
Hi , I get a bit of clink sound and its in sync with my cadence, I Find if i just release the quick release skewer and re-seat the bike and tighten the quick release again, that sorts the Noise for a while, I think because we are moving a bit from side to side it eventually pulls on the grip into the trainer and so just needs reseating.
I would check the bike but also the smart trainer, e.g. the Neo makes noises you describe if there are little residuals at the magnets. Tacx even provides free tools to dissemble the Neo to be able to clean the internals.
Check @GPLama videos or Tacx themself if you are using a Neo.
I have sounds like this every few weeks. Normally I start to loosen a bit the quick release and add some grease there. If this doesn’t help I play a bit with the crank arm screws.
Unfortunately it seems to always just help for a few weeks and than the game starts again…
My theory is that when its too tight the movements cannot be compensated and so the frame is under tension (have an alu bike) . No idea if this is really the reason but so far those actions helped.
I know the sounds aren’t coming from the trainer cos they sound different when it’s the carbon or aluminium bike. I’ll be tightening some bolts on the bike to see if that makes a difference, and today I did tighten up the hub cos the quick release wasn’t very tight; that could’ve been an issue.
I’ll also put the carbon bike back on the trainer and see what happens. If the noises persist, I might have to leave the aluminium bike on permanently to train with. But it’s my wife’s mountain bike, so I’d have to take it off whenever she wants to ride. #FirstWorldProblems, etc…
Best advice is to start with the things that are easiest, quickest and least expensive to check. Not amusing when you strip down your crankset and bottom bracket, put it all back together and find the noise is still there!
