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So, not sure whats going on but This is a new one as of march 25. I've used the product for the last 15 ish years when it first become available.
Maybe they've removed the thickener? or bad batch?? the picture is super stringy and thick, Its good stuff but a pain in the ass to work with.
Sorry to anyone who bought it on my advice and didnt get what was claimed or expected.
The Chris King crew were my booth neighbors at NW Tune-Up this past weekend and had some good chats with them. Turns out they have a mad scientist on staff who actually formulated and makes their own grease, it's not just white labeled stuff. Pretty cool.
Greases are strange, my latest batch of slickoleum is much tackier than normal. Sometimes its almost liquid. Chris King ring drive would be wildly different between batches which is why I think they changed it a few years back.
They normally still work though - the feeling of grease can be deceptive, how "thick" it seems comes from the thickener used and not its viscosity, so a high viscosity grease can seem kinda oily or smooth but take a huge amount of pressure, while something more solid can have a relatively low viscosity.
I think in the USA it's called "Lucas Red and Tacky" or something. I get the same thing from a Boating store here for dirt cheap. One tub will last me a lifetime.
Yup I use a lot of Chris King greases- I dig in to data sheets for fun and found that all of their products are actually quite specifically chosen for each purpose and far from generic off the shelf lubricants. (was also the CK service tech in NZ for a while so a little biased....but honestly it was working with them that converted me to a fan!)
Googling that CK grease as we speak. Signed, desperate HS creak grease fix fanboi.
Speaking of perceived viscosity.... I'm glad I'm not the only one who may have gotten a runny UR grease. It literally didn't stay in its place when I disassembled the headset last night. SO! I mixed the next batch with half and half portions of Finish Line Waterproof grease (thick and rich like a wet stucco) and the runny UR grease. Will keep my keen ears open tomorrow.
Speaking of brash's reference to lasting a lifetime, the Park Tools tub of assembly grease in the background has been around since my junior year in College (1998). I opened a shop in our College student body building with funding from school because the closest shop was 8 miles away from campus and I noticed a lot of students were walking their bikes with flat tires from the goat heads surrounding the entire campus paths. Anyway, I ordered two of everything, one went to the shop cart and the other fell in my tool box (I mean, the collegiate DH team's tech support -I was the sole racer in the NCCA for our school= CSU Sonoma). God, I had to learn quick on how to put back together beach cruiser drum brakes I unintentionally opened during my shop tenure there. Good times.
Sorry that was more of a general recommendation of CK grease, maybe not suitable for here though. The silver grease contains Moly Sulfide which I wouldn't use on carbon parts - the blue stuff would be compatible but its probably too thin to help much
What the UR is supposed to be appears to be the kind of thing I would be looking for (PTFE thickened, maybe a silicone base oil) and quite different to regular mineral oil based grease with lithium or calcium thickeners
Sram Jonnisnot is extremely high viscosity and quite tacky - https://www.sram.com/en/sram/models/ss-grjs-a1 I've had good results with it in specific use cases, and just ordered some UR grease (hopefully mine wil be more like noideas since I'm also in NZ) to compare
The Rock n roll super coat and super web are possibly close but they don't seem to publish data sheets so I've got no idea whats actually in them
What RC shop did you buy from? Wont make a difference but curious haha
rcparts.co.nz - didn't look too hard but their price including shipping seemed a couple of bucks cheaper than the others I looked at.
I might have found a good alternative to the RC stuff... Motorex Bike White Grease. Specs say it contains Teflon and is carbon safe. I got a little jar of it off Universal, and it is very thick and sticky. Best I can describe it as similar consistency to sour cream, but stickier. Not all the way to stucco-like that Finish Line stuff Ozzer posted, but way thicker and stickier than the RC stuff (will not drip off a brush at all). I just put a layer on my ebike's CK Dropset, and in a quick run up and down my street doing stoppies, after a few initial quiet clicks of setting in, it seems silent.
Hey guys,
I also have a problem with fork creaking. I have 3 year old lyrik ultimate, that started creaking 1 year ago. I had it fixed locally, but it is slowly starting to creak again...
I don't know if this time can be fixed, but even if it can, I would want another spare fork. So I am in the market for new cheap-is fork, with the least potential to start creaking.
I am 70kg, on 21kg ebike, looking for 160mm 29 fork. In my current lyrik I have smashpot, so I can transfer it to new fork, so spring itself is not that critical.
I can get below 3 options for cca: 300-350€, new:
Which one would you chose? Which one is least likely to creak?
I weigh the same, and have ridden ebikes in the same weight range. The 38mm stiffness mostly manifests itself as steering precision when trying to hold a line through ruts and brake bumps, or not twisting at the apex of steep g-out rolls. I'd suggest the 38 of those 3 options - like you said, it's got the best air spring. The GRIP damper is adequate for your weight - the VVC GRIP2 has essentially no HSC damping range so you're not missing anything from it. You'd be better off putting in an aftermarket damper in that 38 than a Smashpot.
I'm kind of the opinion that any fork CSU will start creaking after a few years. I've had it happen on a 36, the Lyrik mentioned in this thread, and also 2 Zebs (one of them pretty loudly). So I try to buy new forks to have the possibility to warranty them when it happens.
How did it get fixed? I found if the stanchions and steerer are bonded with the appropriate loctite the creak doesn't come back - maybe a 35mm lyrik is a bit undergunned, I just don't see that many on e bikes personally.
Out of those options I would go with the 38 - In theory the Zeb CSU has been improved but they still creak for a lot of people. So does the 38 - I see less of those creak but I've seen enough to know its not immune.
Also make sure the topcaps are torqued properly (28Nm on RS, 25 on Fox) as that legitimately makes a difference to how much they can move inside the crown.
@AndehM , thx for the reply and some insight. The 38 does probably make the most sense.
@TheSuspensionLabNZ, He pressed the stanchions and steerer out and used some adhesive to bond them in again. He wouldn't tell me what he used, but said that it should be permanent solution.
Good catch regarding the top caps. I checked both legs and they were both undertorqed. I tightened them quite a bit I am honestly surprised that they were that loose. Considering that on the right leg there are indication for damper settings, I would notice if it rotated. So I don't really know why it felt so loose.
When I now put the wheel between my legs and twitst the bar, I can still hear a clik, but I am positive, that it is better than it was. Will have to wait for the trail ride to see how it really is.
And now on to another topic that is also discussed in this thread: Headset preload. How much is enough? What is the safe upper limit?
Some people are mentioning, that you can go as far as bars don't rotate freely anymore.
But even when I put 6Nm, (and that actually feels quite a lot) bars still rotate freely to me. And when I rode for some time with that kind of preload, I didn't notice that bearings would have any issues with it. They were still smooth. But headset noises did go down. This is why I am asking how far (in Nm) can I actually safely go.
tnx
If the bars still turn smoothly then it isn't too tight - there needs to be tension in the bearings themselves to work properly, but there will be noticeable resistance if its too tight. Grease the bolt thread (and maybe under the head) and makes sure all the surfaces are clean and at least lightly greased so there isn't anything binding up and preventing the parts from being pulled together.
Theres a lot of pieces in a headset which adds up to frcition as you tighten the bolt. You are unlikely to break anything by overtightening a normal headset (ignore that if you have an alloy bolt or silly plastic pieces in the assembly) so try keep turning the bolt until it gets stiff - if it never reaches that point there might be an issue preventing the torque being transmitted to the bearing. The most common one is not enough spacers and the topcap bottoms out on the steerer.
IMO a little too loose is far more damaging than slightly too tight - ie if 5Nm happened to be "perfect" on your bike, you will be much better off at 7Nm than 4Nm. I keep seeing more and more damage to steerers that come from sligfhtly loose headsets!
Oh and if people are looking at de-creaking csu's the loctite 609 is all you need - some people seem to make out they use a "secret sauce" but 609 is made just for that purpose inside pressfit parts. Other types of "stronger" loctite are often meant for clearance fits and less effective in this application
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