How to silence your bike

Sound is the movement of energy through substances in longitudinal waves. When it comes to mountain biking, it often, and rather irritatingly, manifests itself as rattles, chatters and clangs.

Stand by the side of any UCI World Cup track though and, even through the roughest of rocks sections, you’ll hear little more than the heavy breathing of the riders and the low hum of soft rubber on terra firma.

Quieter bikes are cooler, it’s a fact. There’s something smooth and precise about a well-oiled machine at work compared to something which sounds like a metal toolbox falling down some stairs.

The secret to soundproofing a bike is in the detail and tracking down just where the noises are coming from. Here’s our guide on achieving silent running.

Cables

When it comes to noise reduction, cables are perhaps your biggest enemy and, with modern mountain bikes sporting two brake cables, at least one gear cable and possibly a dropper seatpost cable, there are plenty of them. There are two kinds of noisy cable; the one that contacts against the frame and the one that contacts against another cable.

For the first example, an easy fix is to secure the cable tighter to the frame with a zip-tie, obviously making sure as it doesn’t kink or affect the cable's ability to move as the frame's suspension cycles through its range of motion.

Often the noisiest cables exist in the spaghetti-like cluster just in front of your handlebars. Again, zip-ties are an easy fix but you need to ensure that the cables can still slide through them to avoid damaging them in a crash. It’s best done in a bike stand so that you can experiment with spinning your bars to guarantee clearance. It’s generally just one cable that’s making the racket, so a single tie can often do the job sufficiently.

Many frames now feature internal cable routing which can, with some designs, equal a bit of noise. If that’s the case, make sure that the cable is secured at both ends. They can ricochet around open exits at chainstays, but a thin sliver of moto foam can easily silence this.

Cladding

Products like MarshGuard’s Slapper Tape are perfect for preventing unwanted rattles, in that they offer extra-thick single-sided rubber tape which can be placed in specific spots.

Before such products were available, there was a trend for using the soft side of sticky-backed Velcro to similar effect.

For downhill bikes, chain devices are a traditionally noisy place as the chain battles to jump from its chainring. Removing top mounts and cladding them with a little rubber is again a good fix here. If the bike is new to you, or has been built by somebody else, then ensure that it’s been cut to the right length as extra links can result in increased flap.

Hardware check

If your cables and chain are silent and there’s still clattering going on then chances are that something more serious is loose. The first place to check is your spokes. Over time, they can come loose and rattle around in their eyelets. Brake pads can also rattle around inside their calipers, a dab of copper grease on the back of the pad can help to deaden this.

Stems can be a prime location for creaks. Investing in a torque wrench is a good idea and will allow you to ensure that everything is up to tension, which will in turn help to keep things quiet.

Crank check

Your cranks are your primary means of propulsion and as such get spun through their fair share of slop. Spinning on the large set of bearings that are your bottom bracket, there’s plenty in there to come loose and make noise.

It can be a nightmare to track down a specific creak though, so it’s a good idea to take everything apart, clean and grease all their threads, check the chainring bolts, and re-assemble again.

Saddles, despite being relative miles away from your bottom bracket, can often disguise their creaky selves as drivetrain bother. Again, a disassembling and greasing session can help, but often it can be that their rails have worked their way loose and a new seat can be on the cards.