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Noticeable clicking/ticking noise when in large chainring

When riding my bike tonight I shifted to my large chainring, and while it had the desired effect in terms of power output, I noticed a constant clicking noise. The performance of my bike was not impacted, but I am wary of it.

I am new to road bikes and in no way mechanically minded, so if anyone can advise what may be causing the noise it would be appreciated.

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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6 comments

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Spangly Shiny | 4 years ago
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If it is a wumper (one per revolution) click check that your drive side crank arm is not contacting the front mech or the end of the front mech cable. Then check that your chainring bolts are tight.
Check also that your Q/R's are not either over or under tightened.

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kil0ran replied to Spangly Shiny | 4 years ago
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Also check its not something on your shoe doing the same. The front mech cable is a really, really common source of this noise.

For the chainring bolts you'll probably also notice it once per revolution with maximum power/weight applied, which will be between 12 o'clock and 3 o'clock on the chainring when viewed from the right hand side of the bike.

Assuming it's a Shimano chainset it's easy to check and adjust, you don't need to remove anything from the bike to do it. There's 5 of them and they attach the inner chainring to the outer. Turn the bike upside down and you can get to them from the non-drive side, just rotate the cranks to get to each one. From memory they're either T25 or T30 Torx head bolts. Likely to be shiny silver, easy to spot. They work loose surprisingly easily over time, so it's something I check monthly on my bike. Just do them up as tight as you can.

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check12 | 4 years ago
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Shift through the gears on your cassette does it do it in all of them? 

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JaredP91 replied to check12 | 4 years ago
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It makes the noise on all of them, but gets more noticeable as I shift through into easier gears on the cassette.

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Rich_cb replied to JaredP91 | 4 years ago
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It's probably the front derailleur.

You can try trimming it when you shift to the easier gears and if that doesn't do the job you may need to index it.

If you have an adjuster either in the cable line or on the derailleur that should be quite easy. If not it might be worth getting your local bike shop to do it if you're not very confident with the mechanical side of things.

GCN did a pretty good explanation video here:
https://youtu.be/8Iz7_JuaQcw

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check12 replied to JaredP91 | 4 years ago
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Is the noise coming from the cassette? (If so probably need to turn the cable adjuster on the rear derailieur anti clockwise one turn (maybe more maybe less) , (indexing rear derailieur) )

if it's coming from the front derailieur (chain rubbing on it) that may need setting up but I don't think that's your issue (but it might be)

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