Anti-seize as lube?
 

EDIT: I meant the title to be Anti-seize as GREASE?

My bike has started to make a creaking sound. I am assuming it might be the new chainrings I installed 400 miles ago (less than a month). I replaced them using the original bolts without regreasing anything.

I do not own any grease, and it is too late to order anything before my normal long weekend ride. Not sure I can stand hours of creaking noises. I do have some Park Tool Anti-Seize ASC-1 that I use on pedals (its main purpose). Good enough for the meantime or is it counter productive?

On a side note, I do not own torque wrenches and the bolts were tightened by my LBS while there for something else. Is proper tourqueing required for chainring bolts?

Anti-Seize should not be used in place of grease. Great for preventing parts for seizing together such as chainring fasteners but I prefer just using some good grease to handle all my bike needs including on fasteners. Anti-seize works great but is a PITA to clean off anything including your hands when you have to take things apart. You can get decent grease for your bike at any Home Depot, Auto Parts store, Bike Shop, Target etc. Even some grocery stores sell Automotive grease. Are you someplace where it's not available? If you don't feel confident in your human torque meter then a torque wrench may be needed but many of us don't use one on chainring bolts.

I do not own a car, and although I can easily get to almost any place I need, places like Home Depot are not accessible. Easy enough to buy such items online. Since I have to work all day, I cannot go to my LBS.

I rarely have a need for a torque wrench. I go to my LBS for work such as changing bottom brackets, but try to do the rest myself. I did not see the need for one on chainrings since they are not carbon, but I thought I should ask.

Before disassembly just on a guess to apply grease or anything else why not just put an allen wrench on each and every chainring fixing bolt and tighten all by feel going around the pattern several times as/if they seat?
If all are secure the source of your creak lies elsewhere.

-Bandera

I did try to tighten them, albeit only after my last ride. Nothing was loose. Since the chainrings are the recent replacement, I simply assumed they are the cause.

The press fit bottom bracket was replaced less than two months ago (over 800 miles) by my mechanic. No creaks until now. My Ultegra cassette has almost 5000 miles (I know, I know, need to replace) and the chain is at 1700 miles (4 months). I am generally good at cleaning and lubing the chain.

Going to apply the anti-seize to my pedals and lube my cleats. Not sure where the creaking can by coming from.

Well, in that case if you find the noise is coming from something that needs the lube and you really don't want to put up with it until the grease arrives you can temporarily use something like chain lube, Vaseline, motor oil, cooking oil, etc., etc., in the meantime.

The anti seize will work for you.

Chainring bolts are a place where anti-seize is a better option than grease.
Bearings - grease.
Nuts & bolts - anti seize.

Agreed it's better for preventing seizing but most greases are more than adequate for bike use and if he has creaking parts the grease would be better IME in addition to the bonus of being easier to clean off and reducing the size of your bike goop arsenal.

on spokes, while building the wheel..

7 days a week ? My LBS is open 7 days .. run by someone , not over 40 hrs a person ..

Anti seize does a better, and long(er) term job of preventing the parts from seizing. Much better than grease.
My prefered paste is kaolin and Titanium oxide based - white colour, easy to wipe off (unlike "copper grease" for example), and still works well from stopping the parts from seizing.

As for the reducing the arsenal size - I understand your point, makes sense. However, since the OP already has the anti seize (and doesn't have grease)...

Exactly. To put it even more generally,
Moving parts: Grease (or oil)
Non-moving parts: Anti-seize

Ha. I have to work all day today, so I will not have time to go to my LBS before my Saturday ride. I do long days full of climbs on weekends, so I do not feel like wasting my morning getting grease.

I do not mind having grease around, simply have never needed it until now. I will not grease bearings. That's a job for a mechanic, not going through that ordeal. Besides, I have a press fit bottom bracket, so the bearings are meant to be replaced.

I am not the best at maintenance. :) My mechanic scolds me for not maintaining better since I only have one bike and it gets used a lot. Crazy climbs (flats are boring), long hours, constant use. I will check brakes, headset, clean my chain, etc, but little else. What should I be greasing?

Bearings should be greased, fasteners get anti-sieze.

Squirting a water bottle in the offending area can frequently quiet things briefly, and is very helpful for diagnosis.

Anti seize would be a good choice. But if you are ever in a bind for assembling something (not lubricating), you can always use petroleum jelly, which most people have in the medicine cabinet.

Just wanted to thank everyone for their responses.
Applied anti-seize to the chainring bolts and to the pedals since I was at it. Problem solved. Should have done it in the first place, but I was anxious to get the new chainrings on.

Sometimes when chainrings get replaced, the area clamped by the bolt isn't as thick as the original, and the bolts bottom out and don't provide solid clamping. I had a subtle squeak that was solved by shortening the chainring nuts by a few thousandths of an inch, by spinning them in a drill press and lowering them on file.

Loctite 243 for bolts
Loctite 270 for thread parts you don't want to come out ever (fixed cup for italian thread BB, cones and locknut on driveside of the axle, fixed gear sprocket when is not a on a track threaded hub and a bb lock ring is used on a normal freewheel thread)
Epoxy as last resort for really buggered threads (i epoxied some pedals on a kids bike. The tread in the crank was wallowed and barely hanging but got a good grip at the end with a dump of epoxy in it to fill in the gaps.. it's still usable)
Antiseize for static nonthreaded objects, like quill stems, seatposts, handlebar clamps.

But for a bike mostly will work anyway.. a tub with marine grease will take care of anything on a bike from bearings to threads and beyond... but by the book is what i said above.
Yet antiseize as a grease for bearings.. i don't recommend even for a bike.
Antiseize on chainrings interface on the spider - spot on application.
Antiseize for threaded fasteners.. not the best but surely will work with no perceivable difference.

Both are fine, but I would say anti-seize is as good if not better for many bicycle fasteners, because the fine thread pitches they have are specifically engineered to resist loosening by vibration when properly torqued. This has been known since the 1800s; the CEI thread diameters and pitches that became the BSC standard predated the British Standard Fine thread standard more generally used before metrification in the UK.
Anti-seize does not make it easier for them to vibrate loose, it only helps prevent galling between them, and helps prevent corrosion, which is especially a problem between dissimilar metals.

The bike interfaces that, in my experience, mostly benefit from thread lockers are those that meet one of the above conditions. Any steel or titanium fastener into aluminum (or magnesium) or vice versa (aluminum fastener into titanium or steel,) where you can't use a lot of torque before stripping one of the sets of threads. Or a relatively coarse thread that works loose. (Mostly it helps remind you not to over-torque it.) Some meet both conditions: a steel or titanium fastener threaded into aluminum or magnesium, like cantilever brake bosses on old aluminum frames and suspension forks.

Agreed. IMO, a combination that requires the use of a thread lock is a poorly designed one. Had a discussion long, long ago about 6 bolt disc attachments - my thoughts were that it was a poor, potentialy unsafe design. Some time later, centerlock discs, that practically self-secure the bolt, like a cassette lockring, were introduced.