bike trainer noise

GMAN22 said:

I just bought a new Minoura Mag 850 trainer and was surprised to hear this fairly high pitch whining sound as soon as I start pedaling 😠 . When I was fitted on my bike on a trainer in the bike shop a few months back, I don't remember noticing any significant noise. Is this noise normal?

Does the volume of the noise increase when you increase speed?

If so you may have a bad bearing in the trainer. When I bought my cycleops fliud trainer, it had a bad bearing and made a noise like that. Cycleops replaced the brake unit for free and shipped it free no question asked. I'm sure Minora would do the same.

If you can't spare a few weeks without the trainer, take it to the LBS to let them hear it and see what they say about it. Fortunatly for me I bought the trainer in the summer (off season for trainers) and tested it out so I could still go outside without freezing.

I've got the same trainer... Mine makes a similiar noise... It gets louder the faster I go. It seems to be a bad harmionic, i.e. it is worse at certain rpm ranges. Is it kind of a combination of a low and high whirrrrrring?

What's a harmionic? Anyway, the sount that this trainer makes resembles the kind you hear in a aircraft cabin when it accelerates for takeoff, just not quite that loud, but still very annoying. It does get louder and higher pitched the faster the wheel spins. I am contacting the store to see what can be done. Maybe I'll trade it in for a Cyclops Fluid.

GMAN22 said:

What's a harmionic?

Its harmonic spelled incorrectly. Sound is actually waves. (peaks and valleys) When the peaks of two different frequencies occur at the same time, that is a harmonic. So 400 Hz is a harmonic of 200 Hz and so forth. What this means in the practical terms of your trainer is that you would hear a loud point at one speed (frequency) then it would get softer as you speed up, only to get louder again when you reach the next harmonic. This would repeat itself as you speed up.

GMAN22 said:

It does get louder and higher pitched the faster the wheel spins.

That is a tell tale sign that a bearing is bad. They may have over greased it or not geased it at all. It may be poorly machined and be too large or small. This is of course assuming that your trainer has bearings. I am not familiar with the Minoura stuff, but if it has those cheap Teflon bushings, then I am not the person to listen to because I have no experience with bushings.

jitteringjr said:

Its harmonic spelled incorrectly. Sound is actually waves. (peaks and valleys) When the peaks of two different frequencies occur at the same time, that is a harmonic. So 400 Hz is a harmonic of 200 Hz and so forth. What this means in the practical terms of your trainer is that you would hear a loud point at one speed (frequency) then it would get softer as you speed up, only to get louder again when you reach the next harmonic. This would repeat itself as you speed up.

That is a tell tale sign that a bearing is bad. They may have over greased it or not geased it at all. It may be poorly machined and be too large or small. This is of course assuming that your trainer has bearings. I am not familiar with the Minoura stuff, but if it has those cheap Teflon bushings, then I am not the person to listen to because I have no experience with bushings.

No its not at all bearing defect. Its the tyres slipping on the cylinder when you pedal. Try decreasing the tyre pressure and see what happens. Trainers are a lot noisier than anyone expects.

tanggoman said:

No its not at all bearing defect. Its the tyres slipping on the cylinder when you pedal. Try decreasing the tyre pressure and see what happens. Trainers are a lot noisier than anyone expects.

Although I highly disagree with this, it is definitely an easier fix than taking it back to the store and thus is worth a shot.

If the tires are slipping, the noise would be pulsating and be loudest at the power point of each pedal cycle. (3 o-clock position on the crank) It was my impression from reading above posts that the noise is constant and nobody constantly slips the tires: unless the bearing is seized.