Hi Greg,

Nice to see a message from you. Mike and I have exchanged a few
emails back and forth. As you are probably aware, he bought my Trice
XXL earlier this year. Anyway, back to the idler question. Since I
couldn't see what was happening when I was riding, I put the bike on
my Sportscrafter Mini Rollers and turned the crank by hand. The idler
did not make the noise so I loaded the seat up with some weighted
bags to simulate my body. It made the cranks harder to turn but the
noise showed up. It was definitely coming from the power idler. I
could find no reason why; the idler was spinning freely and was not
touching the seat or anything else. In an act of desperation, I
removed the idler and took it apart to see if there was an internal
problem. I couldn't find anything wrong so I made sure that
everything was clean, reassembled it and put it back on the bike.
Whatever I did, it worked. The noise was gone! I have since
developed a similar but slightly different noise that seems to happen
under certain pedalling conditions. My guess is that it is the lower
return idler bracket. I have the TerraCycle idler attached to the
stock idler bracket which is attached to the bike as part of the seat
mount. I have found that when I ride, the idler apparently gets
enough pressure from the chain to pull at the bracket and lightly
loosen the bolt that attaches it to the bike. The bracket is then
free to move back and forth in a small arc inside the seat mount. I
think that is what is causing this new noise as it only seems to
happen when I am applying extra (and usually uneven) pressure on the
pedals. Most often during sprinting or hill climbing. I have one leg
slightly longer than the other, hence the uneven pedalling style at
certain times. The noise doesn't happen when I'm just cruising along
nice and steady. I think I will try putting some blue Loctite on the
bolt threads to see if this will hold it tight and, hopefully, stop
the noise.

Stephen