Bicycle Mechanics - BB noise - maybe.

My last group ride I kept hearing a clicking noise near the BB when I pedaled. At first it was occasional so I thought it was the chain rubbing against the derailleur (not exactly the same sound but …). I shifted from the big to small ring and through my cassette and the sound continued. Then we met a nice long climb and the noise got louder and more frequent. A couple guys listened to it but couldn’t figure out where the sound was actually coming from while I pedaled. At the end of the ride a few of us checked the cranks by putting force on them and such but couldn’t mimic the sound.

I’d really like any opinions to what this may be before I drop it off at the shop for a couple of days. Thank you.

Troubleshooting is the hardest part of most mechanical work, especially finding small noises.
There are LOTS of places this can come from; BB, cranks, pedals, chain...

My most recent annoying "near the BB noise" was my wife's bike; turns out the adjustable BB cup had loosened up just a drop (hard to really torque those aluminum parts down) but since it is a sealed unit there was no tell-tale play, just the occasional click.

All tight now; good luck finding yours.

I just finished fixing the second of my creaky bottom bracket issues. The first bike had about 3000 miles on it and was making a loud creaking noise during hard pedaling (standing up). I took the BB out and the bearings felt tight and smooth. I greased up the threads on the cups and now no more noise. The second bike has about 6500 miles on it and was making more of a clicking noise, again during hard pedaling only. When I removed the bottom bracket from this bike, the bearings felt noticeably rough. I swapped the BB out with a new one and no more noise. Hope this possibly helps with your diagnosis.

Thank you. This does help.

My beater bike has simmilar issues and I suppose that since its a beater I haven't sorted it out yet but I too thought is was the BB but when I changed cranks to get shorter arms I also fitted a far supperior BB but it didn't change a thing. Its a clicking noise on my bike too and the funny thing with my bike is that it only happens on certain cogs. On the smallest cog and the 2 largest cogs its fine but when I'm on the middle ones it clicks!

Anyway I suspect that its to do with the rear derailer and the angle that the chains running. Its a cheap and nasty derailer so its probably so far out of whack that its not a supprise that its making a noise. I guess I'll sort it out one day.

Regards, Anthony

My suggestion is: Remove the pedals so that you are not getting any pedal bearing mechanical noise, move the chain to the side so that is clear of chainrings, rotate the bb. Listen & feel for noise &/or rough movement. Bob

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'm keeping them in mind when I get home tonight and test her out again.

make sure all the nuts and bolts are tight. the noise could be your seat, make sure its tight.

I had a similar situation on a Fuji Sunfire. A loud, click noise fron the BB area. I replaced chain, did not help, replaced pedals, the sound continued, I replaced the BB cartridge, the sound was still there, I replaced the cranks+chain rings and the sound was gone.

The first step before replacing parts is to make sure everything is tight. Cranks are the most common offender.

The first step before replacing parts is to make sure everything is tight. Cranks are the most common offender.

I would have to agree with this post as I recently had this same problem. Believe it or not this forum has had this issue come up very frequently and there has been a lot of great advice.

In my pursuit I had tried multiple seats, seatposts, BB's, pedals, shoes and cranks to no avail. I am running Campy Record Carbon on a Look KG 461.

The way that I finally solved the problem was to:
1) Purchase a reasonably priced (AKA: cheap) torque wrench (yes, I read the forum on which torque wrench is best)
2) Remove cranks
3) Use a front wheel skewer (you may need to use a rear if you are running a tripple) to hold the BB tool in place and prevent slipage and damage
4) Remove BB
5) Ensure that BB threads are well greased
6) Tighten BB using torque wrench to 38lbs based on Campy specs (yes I had kept my owners manuals)
6) Grease faces of spindle (I know opinions vary here too)
7) Grease crank bolts liberally
8) Tighten cranks to Campy spec's of 28lbs (yup, kept that manual too)

The most interesting thing I noticed visually was that the non-drive side crank was pulled much further onto the spindle when tightened using the torque wrench than I had ever done using my 4" 8mm allen wrench. You can virtually see no spindle at all now. This is also where I had suspected the root of my problem was to begin with. I was about to send the crank arm back under warranty as it is only about 6 months old.

Problem solved after a ride w/ a 2,000 foot climb yesterday!

Hope this all helps.