Squeak Squeak Squeak

It started last year, it started as an occasional squeak, one of those noises you weren't sure you actually heard. I was hard to make out and those tour pack mounted antenna were no help, when you tipped your head left or right to catch the sound the singing antenna intervened.  Last September it really decided to make itself known, somewhere between Hershey Park and Pottsville PA on route 81, it was a rotational squeak, and while it did increase with speed, it never increased in a equal amount to the speed. A rotating squeak at 30 miles an hour should at 80 be a squeal or non-existent as with a bearing problem. This squeak just picked up speed to a point then stayed at that pace.

This year it is louder than ever and seeing as the season is just starting I wanted to know what it was. So today I took Charlene out without her saddlebags in order to try and determine better where the sound is coming from. What I found was the squeak is either magnified by having the bags on or it is bag related, because the squeak stayed home.

Knowing now it is not a mechanical issue takes a load of the mind, but I do have to find what makes the noise because it is annoying.