I recently bought a Specialized Crosstrail hybrid bicycle and have been having minor issues with the brakes, particularly the front. When I initially bought the bike, there was a metallic scraping noise upon braking, which ended up being metal fragments embedded in the pads. I removed the fragments and smoothed the rim with emory cloth and it is much better. However, the front is still a little louder than I feel it should be. Also, the front wheel is a tad out of true (not much) which I believe it causing my other issue, which is fork vibration. My bike has a front suspension and when I brake, the fork vibrates, presumably because most of the force is applied to the front and the fork is a week point. The fork has a lockout lever on it, and this occurs with the fork locked (don't do much riding with it unlocked). Is this common amongst bikes with front suspensions or does it sound like a manufacturer defect? I had the wheels checked at the shop where I bought the bike and they verified that the wheels are within spec as far as being true. Wondering if maybe the steering head is loose. I will check that next.
Fork Vibrations
- Thread starter mossman
- Start date
That's not a disk brake bike huh?
What you could do is to get it to a shop and check the fork cups and bearings in the frame headtube.
After that you could check the whole fork, including the suspension.
Also checking if the brakes are correctly attached to the fork might locate the problem.
Truing the wheel is never a bad idea.
The vibration might actually be caused from the way you are engaging the brakes. Maybe try a few different pressures and see how it reacts?
But if everything is Ok... A bit of vibration, brake squeal are all normal...
I currently have brakes that squeal, a bottom bracket that makes a creaking sound because of broken bearings (possibly axle too) and a rear wheel that makes a buzzing sound because of the bearings and grease gone bad (maybe the axle too)...
Except the rear wheel axle which I worry that might f@ck up the wheel hub, I don't mind that stuff and I will probably fix all these before I make a seriously long ride where I would want everything to be Ok.
What you could do is to get it to a shop and check the fork cups and bearings in the frame headtube.
After that you could check the whole fork, including the suspension.
Also checking if the brakes are correctly attached to the fork might locate the problem.
Truing the wheel is never a bad idea.
The vibration might actually be caused from the way you are engaging the brakes. Maybe try a few different pressures and see how it reacts?
But if everything is Ok... A bit of vibration, brake squeal are all normal...
I currently have brakes that squeal, a bottom bracket that makes a creaking sound because of broken bearings (possibly axle too) and a rear wheel that makes a buzzing sound because of the bearings and grease gone bad (maybe the axle too)...
Except the rear wheel axle which I worry that might f@ck up the wheel hub, I don't mind that stuff and I will probably fix all these before I make a seriously long ride where I would want everything to be Ok.
An out of true rim can cause vibration on braking. Good braking with rim brakes depends on the pads hitting the rim simultaneously, more or less, and pressing on the rim with equal force, more or less. Brakes that are not properly adjusted can eventually push the rim out of true, and a rim that wobbles is getting oscillating pressure from the two brake pads, causing vibration and even more out-of-trueness.
So, make sure the wheel is straight in the dropouts, make sure the quick release lever is hand-tight, make sure the hub is not loose, get that wheel trued, and have that brake adjusted, in that order. Also, remove residual grim from the rims and pads to avoid grinding that **** into the rims.
So, make sure the wheel is straight in the dropouts, make sure the quick release lever is hand-tight, make sure the hub is not loose, get that wheel trued, and have that brake adjusted, in that order. Also, remove residual grim from the rims and pads to avoid grinding that **** into the rims.
I took a closer look and it is definitely the suspension. When I rock the bike with the front brake on, there is a good amount of play between the upper part and lower part of the suspension. I would expect a little play, but this doesn't seem normal and is obviously worse with my weight on the bike.
I actually used a fine grit drywall sanding block, which is essentially sandpaper. Too fine to scratch anything. A degreaser won't get burrs out of metal.
mossman said:
What kind of brake pads are you using? The metal shards should probably be stuck on the pads, not the rim...
Are your rims very old?
Rims should not be sanded... You can clean them to remove and foreign matter, like oil, road muck etc, but sanding them would ruin the brake surface.
Not sure. Whatever came with the bike. They were making screeching noises when I first bought it. I brought it back to the shop and they found metal fragments imbedded in the pads, which they picked out. They used some sort of buffing tool to remove any fine scratches from the rim caused by the fragments. I found a couple more that they missed and did the same thing.
Bike is less than a year old with maybe 75 miles on it.
.
We're talking VERY fine sanding block. So fine it doesn't even feel like it's doing anything.
I spoke with the manager today and he said the fork would likely need to be replaced. The bike is under warranty for life (parts AND labor if you can believe that), so no worries.
I also experience vibration on the fork when I'm braking... I consider it normal, but if the bike shop said that their something wrong with the fork then maybe replacing it would solve the problem.mossman said:
Are the brake blocks securely attached to the fork?
It could caused by alot of things... But some noise - vibration is sometimes normal.
With my luck, I'm sure the new fork will do the same thing. At least then I'll know it's normal, and will probably never buy another bike with a front suspension. I'm going to have them true up the front wheel again as well because I'm sure even the slightest amount of runout is compounding the issue. They checked it last time I had the bike in for service (because of an out-of-true rear wheel) and said it was fine. I brought it home and got it better. If I had a truing stand, I would get it perfect, but I can't justify the cost right now.
mossman said:
Truing wheels is an expensive repair... Here they cost something between 5-15 euro. If you want your hub bearings re-packed you need to add another 15 euro... A complete overhaul for a wheel is 30 euro each and if you consider that you can get a new pair of wheels for 100 euro then maybe the cost is not justifiable for cheaper wheels. But it would be wasteful to just toss them... :unsure:
and that is here... I think that in some other places of the world truing wheels or wheel building costs alot of money, maybe something like 100euroz each or something...
Btw, it's quite likely that the bike -will always- have a problem of some short.
I am currently using a bike with slightly untrue wheels, f@cked up bearings in the rear, cracked bottom bracket and who knows what else... Until recently there was a booted rear tire in top of all that.
But I am still using it and dont get too annoyed about it.
I will go for a complete overhaul before a double metric century that I will be going in May (an organized Audax ride). I will also probably make a complete overhaul if I ever decide to sell the bike, or suggest the buyer to do it and take some money of the price...
But at the moment after 9000km it looks like my beloved Allez is a keeper. :wub:
Hopefully I wont say the "famous last words" : "Oh sh^t!!!" as the head tube cracks on the road.
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