Was on a century ride yesterday and part way into it, I noticed creaks coming from the crank area. At first, I thought is was the chain rubbing against the front dérailleur. But, a visual inspection showed this to not be the case. It happened on both chainrings, more so on the large ring, (being a flatish route, I really didn't use the small chainring very much).

The creaks got worse and worse as the ride progressed. And, seem to be the loudest when I was applying increased power, such as pulling a hill. A few times when I just freewheeled, without applying hardly power to the pedals, the noise was pretty much gone. I did notice early in the ride, there was not much noise, but when I stood on the pedals to get over a little rise, it creeked until I crested the hill, sat down, and resumed normal pedaling. I have not noticed any creeking on previous rides, or if I did, I assumed it was chain rubbing against the FD.

The only thing I can think of is that the creeks emanate from the bottom bracket. It's a fairly new bike, Strava shows I've put just 721.0 miles on it. It is a Pinarello FP Team that I purchased from Competitive Cyclist. It was built up with Ultegra 6700. The only changes I've made that might affect the noise is changing the crank from a 53/39 to a 50/34, (it was a new, unused crankset), and adding a K-Edge chain catcher. I do not know what manufacturer of the bottom bracket the bike has and would have to pull the crank to find out if it is a Shimano or a MOst.

Any ideas?

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p.s. I lubed the chain the morning before the ride.

I'd check, in order of increasing complexity, cleats, pedals, chainring bolts, crank mounting, bottom bracket. And don't forget the seat mounting hardware...

Excellent point; ppl often do.

Thanks, John. I'll check those, except for the seat mount. The noise is definitely coming from the crank area. Please excuse my ignorance, what is the "crank mounting"?

Where the crank is attached to the bottom bracket spindle. There are several different ways in which this is done, depending on manufacturer and model.

I had a similar problem. My crank broke. The bike was still ridable, but the right side crank (where the chain is) was wobbly.

So, yeah. I'd have it looked at.

What broke,specifically? Did it come apart when you removed it?

You swear the sound is coming from the crank/BB area, but it wouldn't hurt to re-check your handlebars and stem -- you put extra force into those when riding hard, as well.

If the noise started after the crank change that would be the obvious candidate. Bottom brackets seldom creak, I've never heard a derailleur rubbing sound described as a creak, and chain noise does not occur in time with crank rotation. You might as well address the most common cause first by properly tightening both crank arms and pedals.