Mountain Biking Videos, Trail Maps, Blogs, and More!


got only 50 miles on my new trek 4300, i think crank in creaking

By jeepfreak on 8/7/2007

hi i got about 50 miles on my new 4300 08 trek mountain now and i got a creaking
noise in my crank on load . why would it do this already? i ride more street than off road, and am about 210lbs. am I really this tough on bikes or what. i got this bike because Im tired of going through cheap ones every couple years.

2 comments

Curto says:

Could be a loose bottom bracket or crank arm. I've had this problem before, ended up be a combo of both...

Mike says:

I don't think the creaking is the BB at all.

Unfortunately it is the frame. If you're the original owner, Trek will replace it free. They have lifetime warranty on frames.

Aluminum frames are troublesome around the welds, called the heat-affected zone. Trek's hardening technique is not infallible and Aluminum ALWAYS fatigue cracks, especially if you're a Clydesdale like me. I did this to a C-dale last year....chalked it up to age. Creaked for a month or so until my Trek frame engineer friend showed me where to look for the hairline cracks. Really subtle, but will catastrophically fail.

Any Aluminum frame is subject to this, even steel frames, although they are very tough compared to Aluminum, so don't be too hard on Trek.

Mike

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Captcha
This question is used to make sure you are a human visitor and to prevent spam submissions.
Copy the characters (respecting upper/lower case) from the image.