There could be a number of reasons that a track wheel is making a noise. But if you don't see a broken spoke or some other obviously wrong and bad thing, like part of your tire, hub, chain, or frame is not where it used to be, take a look at your cog. You may be pleasure riding a crazy number of miles on your fixed joy toy, and the new noise is coming from your chain trying to mesh with your worn out rear cog.
If you are not making a living on your bike or race training, you may not have a sense of how much fixed riding you do each week. These photos of Jeff's cog will give you an idea of a very worn cog versus a new cog. See the shark fin points that make it pretty like the sun? This means it is time to replace the worn cog. Don't be sad. Make yourself or someone you love a necklace.
The worn cog in the photo is a Dura Ace 15T. The new cog is a Dura Ace 14T msrp approx. $23. Dura Ace cogs are fine for racing and riding. But they are not as tough as a triple heat-treated hardened silver stainless steel Phil Wood track cogs (msrp approx. $45 depending on tooth number) or Euro Asia's best cog, a hardened stainless steel silver Kieran cog, the one that comes in an orange pouch (msrp approx $60).
If you are a mile monster, buy yourself something pretty when you wear out a Phil or EAI Keiran cog. You will deserve it.
Photos by Wheelgirl, lovely worn cog shape made by Jeff on his Felt TK2
If you think that you want to make your fixie even lighter with an aluminum cog, please think again.
I had a national masters track champion, Leo, who does some officiating at the track, come into the shop and tell me a story of a guy racing on an aluminum cog. The racer generated so much torque, he shred bits of aluminum off of the cog onto the track. Guess what happens when a few guys racing on really expensive tubular tires run over bits of someone's shredded aluminum cog. Not a pretty picture.
