Tick at 12 O'clock
 

I have the 7000 series Shimano 105 groupset. While pedaling in the 4 hardest gears, cruising, I'm hearing a Tick on the left pedal right at 12 O'clock. Can't feel it anywhere. Any ideas of what that could be.?? Bike is a Specialized Diverge E5 Comp.

Check the FD cable, the end cap may be hitting the crank arm as it passes (if this has been left too long, the interaction with the cable end and crank will happen at approx the 12 o'clock position)

Good advice but the cable end is not the culprit. Thanks.

Try easy and cheap things before going deeper. The FD cable tip will move depending upon which front chainring you are using so check all of them. Check that the aglet (plastic or metal tip) on the end of your shoelace or the shoe itself is not hitting the crank arm. Try swapping the pedals with a known-quiet set, preferably platform type to eliminate cleat and shoe noise. Is there a cadence sensor magnet on the crank? Try pedaling out of the saddle to see if the noise goes away. Lube the contact points of your front and rear skewers and ensure that they are very tight.

Pretty much any two parts touching each other can be the source of noise. Looking at my bike I see dozens of said contact points. So as ds said check out/change/service the easy to do ones first. Don't limit your efforts to only drivetrain stuff either. There are plenty of reports of saddle rails, post in frames, bars/stem sources that only sounded like coming from the cranks. Andy

I've tried 2 saddles with the same tick present. The bike went in for a 30 hour checkup a month ago. Mechanic said the tick was from a dirty chain. Fact is the tick never went away. Not an easy find. Kinda bugs me that my $250 Schwinn goes down the road silently while the nice bike has a tick. I'm not bashing any brand or the mechanic for being wrong. It's just that I expected the Schwinn to have some noise and the nice bike not to. I'm going to make an appointment to have it looked at again.

Oh goody, a game of twenty questions! I'll guess crank-hitting-shoelace.

Nope. Shoelace is clear. 19 more questions to go....

Anecdote - one time I discovered it was the keys in my pocket that made a noise at a certain pedal position.


Question:
Only the hardest four gears? Meaning smallest four cogs and only in the big ring? All other gears are silent? And shifting is all smooth and precise throughout the range?

If so, that has got to be a derailleur/cable thing.
And when the left pedal is at 12 o'clock, the right pedal is at 6 - so check down there too.

My road bike recently developed a consistent double-click sound on every crank rotation (unless I'm pedalling lightly). I suspect it's that press-in bottom bracket finally making it's presence known.
But fortunately, as I've gotten older, and less concerned with a lot of the stuff I used to be, it's not bothering me too much.

A friend once had a persistent tick at 12 o'clock. Turned out that he had a phobia of lunch.

Check your skewers or through axles: Clean/lube and torq to spec if through axle. If skewer make sure it's tighter than you had it.

Check your seatpost: clean apply carbon grip past and torq back to spec.

Diablo.... And all .... The bike has a threaded bottom bracket.

That kind of ticking/clicking noise is enough to drive someone crazy. It is extremely hard to pinpoint where the noise is actually coming from. If you have someone that can ride with and alongside of you, they may be able to figure out what area it is actually coming from. I had one recently that I would have bet someone it was coming from rear wheel. Switched out wheels and same noise still there. Switched pedals and saddle, cleaned chain, cassette and rings; noise still there. I eliminated all I could think of and decided it must be from the bottom bracket. I bought the tool square taper BB removal and pulled the BB, cleaned and regreased the cups and threads. No noise after this BB work until about 25 miles into a ride. The noise started again and got worse as I rode towards home. When I checked out the BB, it looked OK from the outside, but, before I pulled it again I checked the tightness and the right side was not tightened with enough torque. I clamped the BB tool to the BB with a QR skewer and re-tightened the BB with more torque. I could not get that much torque without clamping the BB. I have ridden a few hundred miles since that fix and have had no more ticking noise. It is OK that it took so much to find the cause of the noise because I ended up with a clean bike and everything lubed and tightened.