# Cause of clicking when braking?



## nolight (Oct 12, 2012)

Hi, recently I start to get some clicking sound which gets worse when I use my front brake. Anyone has experience what would be the cause?

When bicycle is moving forward, the clicking sound is not as significant and infrequent, and sometimes may not even hear it:
click.....delay....click.....delay.....click

When squeezing the front brake especially from high speed, it becomes louder and frequent and is more significant when braking from higher speed:
click,click,click,click,click

I tried braking with rear brake and don't get this sound. Also comparing wheel tru seems like front and rear wheel are comparable.

Could it be the front wheel hub? brake itself?


----------



## Peter P. (Dec 30, 2006)

Yes; it could be the brake or the front wheel.

My thought was; it's the headset.

The cups could be a loose fit in the frame. The headtube could be ovalized. The bearings could be dry. And, assuming the headset uses cartridge bearings, the cartridges may lack grease where they contact the cups.

Or, the headset could merely need a little tightening. What you may be hearing is the fork rocking in the frame when you apply the front brake.


----------



## Doc_D (Mar 16, 2006)

Your wheel rim is probably pinned and not welded. That means the junction isn't perfect and you'll get the click your referring to.

Raise the bike up in the air and very light apply the brakes while spinning the wheel. At the spot you hear the noise look at the brake track. You'll see a line where the rim is joined to itself.


----------



## davcruz (Oct 9, 2007)

You also could have a piece of something (rock, wood, aluminum from the rim) embedded in the brake shoe, it will make the noise as it passes the rim junction.


----------



## Jay Strongbow (May 8, 2010)

Do you have a computer sensor on the front wheel? I'll guess the magnet is a little too close to the sensor and/or you front brake is slightly off center and pushes the wheel in that direction when you apply the brakes.

I kind of doubt it's anything with the brake and rim. You wouldn't get that when not braking (unless the brakes were rubbing without applying them but I'll assume you would seen that).


----------



## Eric_H (Feb 5, 2004)

Other considerations for noises while braking:

A small blemish on the braking track of the rim. I have had this happen when my rim has been hit by a small rock ejected from under another rider's wheel (in a group obviously). Run fingers around braking track to feel for any imperfection. If found, use some fine grit sandpaper to smooth it, or not as it will eventually smooth out from braking and grit.

A brake pad misalignment where the pad may be contacting the tire. Usually this is resolved quickly because the pad wears a hole in the casing and BANG. Still worth checking out.

If the click is present and gets worse with braking, it could be something as simple as a loose hub bearing. I had a Mavic Ksyrium SL front with a bearing cone that liked to work itself loose. I would get a noise like this. Another culprit could be a cracked spoke eyelet if the rims are "conventional". I've seen this one too.


----------



## nolight (Oct 12, 2012)

I feel my hand along the rim, although certain places on the front wheel feel a bit rough to the touch it is not rougher than the rear wheel.

A couple of places on the left brake pad shows tiny wear at the top and I noticed the brake pads are a bit high relative to the rear wheel so I have adjusted them down and will ride next time to see if that helps.

Previously I thought it is loose hub as I feel little resistance when I open quick-release skewer so I adjusted skewer tighter. The no braking click seems to be less but the braking clicking is still clearly there.

The headset seems quite tight as it doesn't rock when I squeeze front brake and push handlebar forward and back.

Don't think it is magnet as that should not cause clicking to increase in frequency with braking.


----------



## marathon marke (Nov 14, 2011)

I suppose the valve stem might be clicking against the hole in the rim with each revolution. Also, check to see if you have any loose spokes.


----------



## Bill2 (Oct 14, 2007)

I've had this before where the rim seam crosses under the brake pad- get a click once per revolution. I eventually changed the rims when they got additionally dinged-up and the brake clicking stopped as well. Those were Ambrosio Evolutions


----------



## wim (Feb 28, 2005)

If the click is indeed a rim imperfection hitting a brake pad, you can often eliminate it by toeing in the pad ever so slightly. It allows the imperfection to slide silently under the pad surface instead of audibly hitting the edge of the pad.


----------



## Jay Strongbow (May 8, 2010)

nolight said:


> Don't think it is magnet as that should not cause clicking to increase in frequency with braking.


Yes it could......if it's really close when not braking but slightly off center brakes move it to hit every revolution when you apply them. Just take it off and go for a little spin so you can at least eliminate that possibility.


----------



## eflayer2 (Feb 15, 2002)

you might consider the possibility of a loose spoke. a loose nipple against the rim could be the culprit. 

or what kind of pads you have installed. 

old Tektro pads used to include tiny embedded metal chips that were good for nothing.


----------



## wim (Feb 28, 2005)

Jay Strongbow said:


> Yes it could......if it's really close when not braking but slightly off center brakes move it to hit every revolution when you apply them.


This is especially true of the brakes aren't _functionally_ centered, meaning the pads don't contact the left and right rim braking track at the exact same instant when applying the brakes. And keep in mind that visually centered doesn't necessarily mean functionally centered.


----------



## nolight (Oct 12, 2012)

After lowering the brake pads and playing with the quick-release skewer, the clicking when braking is still there, but I learn more about it.

It appears to be a dual clicking - tik tok tik tok (let's call it click A and click B).

Doesn't appear to be magnet as the frequency of magnet sound is less frequent and should be 1 per revolution:
A....A....A....

What I hear is:
AB..AB...AB...

Another thing is this clicking really only happens now when I squeeze the front brake hard enough, like you need the brake to be really contacting the rim close enough to hear it (my earlier description that it happens a bit even without braking may be inaccurate).

Then I spun the wheel and slowly squeezed front brake as suggested. Seems like I could duplicate the clicking and found that click A and B happened in 1 revolution (using the magnet as reference). Seems like there may be 2 rough patches on the rim causing the clicking, one patch before the magnet and one patch almost opposite to the magnet, that is why the clicking is more frequent than magnet's clicking would be.

I suspect clicking may be a combination of brake pad roughness (left brake pad appears imperfect at 2 locations) + rim roughness + wheel tru is not perfect. 

I may try:
1. swapping the left and right brake pads to see if it helps, by separating what I thought is the imperfect brake pad from the imperfect side of rim
2. sandpaper rim
3. changing the center alignment of brakes to make the supposed better side contact earlier.

I am not sure how to check loose spoke but they feel tight when I squeeze them.


----------



## Bill2 (Oct 14, 2007)

Make sure your pads are not unidirectional. My Campy pads are made to be installed only one way.


----------



## Chainstay (Mar 13, 2004)

If the sensor is close to the brake shoe holder the holder could be pushing the sensor into the spokes


----------



## nolight (Oct 12, 2012)

Forgot to update this. Everything is fine now and all I did was just adjust the center alignment of the brake a bit. I suspect having 1 side of the brake (the rougher side) touch too early caused imbalance in the rubbing and accentuated any roughness which caused the clicking sound.

In further developments I also got some even worse rubbing sound when braking the rear wheel which I quickly fixed by simply taking out the brake pads and cleaning them a bit, and then putting back and then adjust the pad position to be more even. Small adjustments of brake pad position help a lot.


----------

