Creaking noise when pedaling hard
 

Hi

Like the title says, I have this noise that's mostly there only when I'm pedaling hard or riding uphill, otherwise, it won't be heard. I can actually hear it even when I'm stopped -while sitting on the saddle- and push hard on the pedal. It seems pushing hard on either pedal will cause this noise. I'm almost positive it's not the pedals themselves because I already tried lubricating the threads several times. So, what can be causing this noise ? The bike is about 5 years old but it's only used a few months out of the year. And other than the noise everything works perfectly.

Thanks.

BTW, how come when I use the search function the results aren't what I'm looking for ?

shoot some lube at the BB & test ride it.

Might be spokes or all sorts of things. If you put out enough power, lots of things on your bike will groan and moan beside you.

Check the crankarm bolts for tightness, as well as the chainring bolts.

Seat Post
 

Check the tightness of your seat clamp. Put some grease on the area where the metal clamp meets the seat rails.

Could be:
Bottom bracket in frame
Crank in bottom bracket
Pedals in crank
Pedals themselves
Chainring bolts
Cassette
Q/R skewer/thru axle
Seatpost in frame
Saddle on post
And about a dozen other things

Thanks for the replies, guys. Appreciate it. Nothing was too lose but I tried to tighten up all the screws and bolts but after I rode my bike the noise was still there. I don't think it's coming from the seat. It's definitely coming from the crank area. I hope it's not the BB. I don't know if I should try to take the cranks off, or maybe take it to the shop. I usually like to fix things myself but looks like this time I won't be able to do that.

It is probably your knees.
Try taking some fish oil.

Sometimes disassembling, greasing, and re-assembling can silence noises. But I don't see nay reason to take the crank arms off unless you're going to service the bottom bracket at the same time. How old are the drivetrain parts (BB, chainrings, chain, and rear cogs)? If it's been five years since they've been evaluated/serviced/replaced, it's probably overdue.

What type of BB do you have? I've never had a square taper BB creak but BB30... well, that's another story.

On a different tack, I once cured an annoying but mysterious creak by putting some light oil ("3 in 1 oil") onto the chainring bolts and leaving it lying down in the sunshine. I think the oil got right in there due to the different expansion rates of the alloy chainrings and the steel chainring bolts.

Hope you get this sorted.

Why does the noise bother you so much? You say it only happens when you put a lot of power into the cranks.

If you do nothing, and there is a real problem, it won't cost you any more money to fix it when it shows itself than now while it's hiding.

Wait until the off-season, and regrease or replace BB bearings. My bike with external bearings is doing the same thing, and that's my cue to clean and regrease. If the bikes a keeper, buy the tools you need to remove cranks and BB bearings. Pays off in short order...

Riding a noisy bike sucks. And waiting until a problem gets worse so it's easier to diagnose can absolutely be more expensive to fix. It can also be risky if an ignored problem part decides to fail under a lot of power.

Had a creak that I was certain was coming from the BB, even a riding mate said he could hear it coming from the BB. Before I dug into the BB I shot some silicone spray on the connection between the saddle cover and the seat rails. The creak was gone. It's a quick thing to try before tearing into the bike.

I had a similar issue a few years back and my problem was solved - at the time I was running Campy Chorus and the issue turned out to be the contact under load between the BB bearing and the holding cups - if you have a different BB/crank design it might not help but it's not restricted to Campy and might work if you have a similar setup to Campy , i.e. bearing with cups - the link to my earlier post is below - you have too scroll down a bit to see it .

Creaky Cranks - Bike Forums

Front QR can be the culprit if not tight enough. Same with brake levers.

Look the frame over for cracks. Better safe than sorry.

Depending on pedals...try the cleats. My speedplays sometimes make a little noise.

Usually this noise is caused by the seatpost moving inside the downtube. No one ever believes it though until they remove the seatpost and apply something like ParkTools Polylube (the green grease, which is okay to use on carbon seatposts btw) to the seatpost and reinstall it. Problem solved.

Aluminum framed bike?

This was my Creak.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e2b6767618.jpg

Wow ! Lots of replies. Thanks again for the replies.

Iride01, some people are very sensitive to noises, especially repetitive ones (I think it's called misophonia). I'm extremely sensitive to repetitive sounds and I become too focused on any noise that I hear that some people might not even pay any attention to. When I'm riding and my bike makes noises I just want to stop riding and go home because I won't enjoy the ride. Today was a perfect day for riding but didn't go because I still haven't sorted out the problem even though the noise isn't too loud. But the other thing, I like to keep my things in good shape, which means I like to fix things when they start showing signs of trouble.

I think this is a square taper BB. I have the tool to remove the cranks but I'm still not 100% sure where the noise is coming from but it does sound like it's coming from that area (chainring/cranks) but can't pinpoint it. Definitely not the seat/post or brake levers. Also, it's actually more like a ticking sound. And yes, it is an aluminum frame bike -with the exception of the fork, I think.

As mentioned, this is a 5 year old bike in like brand new condition and only ridden a few months out of the year. I doubt there's anything wrong with the frame -like cracks.

A loose rear wheel skewer sounds like it's coming from the bottom bracket when you have a load on it. When I start hearing a creak on a ride I'll pull over and tighten it and the majority of the time that's it. The last time which was a few weeks ago it was the pedal axle threads that just needed to be greased. Just check those and if the sound is still there just look at every part that has metal to metal contact. Many sounds sound like it's in the bottom bracket area when it's not.

Replace your pedal assemblies with a brand new pair.

I just discovered that the annoying sound coming from my BB was actually coming from the rear hub - needed to be pulled out, cleaned up/re-greased. That was after ruling out pedals and replacing overdue-to-be-replaced chain/chainring/BB, and checking anything else that had a bolt. I would have sworn it was coming from the BB--I could feel it through my feet.