ptempel, I used ski wax, but I bet any wax would do. Giood luck.

A bunch of rapid pings, tinks, and dings.......confused me for a moment until I noticed little yellow airsoft pellets bouncing on the ground. Never figured out exactly where they came from, but suspect it was from an apartment building.

Ah ok. Thanks for the recommendation, [MENTION=75749]cccorlew[/MENTION]!

A shot of spray lube around the tensioning bolt takes care of this...

Most recently...

Intermittent creaking noises turned out to be the padded comfort saddle rather than the bottom bracket. Yeah, the BB wobbles a bit, but it's not making those noises. I'd never had a creaky saddle before and didn't think to check the most obvious solution. I could only hear the noises were coming from somewhere below and assumed the worst.

And a frame mounted video camera was picking up noises amplified by the aluminum tubes. With the unaided ear I couldn't hear the stuff the camera was picking up when mounted on the head tube. So I moved the camera to the handlebars. Problem solved.

The snap on the pannier handle hitting the top of the rack.

I've had the cable end/crank and leaf/fender/brake

The metal aglet on my shoe lace hitting the frame/crank arm as i pedal. That one took a while to figure out.

Faint tick tick tick sound, most noticeable at slower speeds.
Looked for it for the longest time myself.
Took the bike in to three bike shops to help diagnose. Noise persisted.
Removed the tire, tube, rim tape to true the wheel after some time living with the noise.
Found metal shavings from the drilling of the aluminum rim for spoke holes. Origin8 Speed V deeper wheel set that wasn't properly deburred/polished after drilling. Shavings were held in place by the spokes and rim strip. Hit the inside of rim with sand paper, shook out, wiped down.
Problem solved.

Had some creaks and pings that turned out to be a loose spoke. Other times had similar noises that turned out to be the rear wheel skewer being just barely loose enough to shift in the dropout under heavy load (standing pedal mashing).

Recently started getting some creaks and squeaks on my road bike commuter, and of course I assume it to be either pedals or BB. Nope, it was one of the wheel skewers again. I put on some new tires last week and made sure to get those skewers tight, and haven't heard any noises since then.

Not uncommon; also bits of metal from the welding process can be left behind...

Creaking noise per pedal cycle, turned out to be part of the saddle rubbing on the saddle rail. Solved it with a qtip and some grease.

Creaking noise per pedal cycle, turned out to be loose chainring bolts, my chainring was actually about to fall off! Tightened 'em up.

A year or two later, started getting a similar noise, I check my chainring bolts, some are maybe not quite as tight as they could be, I tighten, still noise, tighten, still noise, and end up shearing off the heads on two of them. Replaced them with steel chainring bolts, a little grease on the threads (not the shoulders), cleaned-off chainrings and spider, bottom-bracket (UN-55) pulled and cleaned, bb shell cleaned, reinstalled with a spacer, finally it's quiet again. Not sure exactly what the cause was.

Adjusting front derailleur, can't figure out why I'm getting chain-rubbing noise, because I can see clearly there is clearance all around the chain -- turns out the FD is too low and chainring teeth are just barely scraping it as they go by, sounded exactly like a rubbing chain.

One time my plastic ziptie-on chainstay protector was rubbing on my tire.

Another time my rear blinkie was rubbing my rear tire, because my tires are so fat. I had to hacksaw off half the mounting tab off my rack, and install the blinkie hardware a little higher with just one bolt.

Just recently, I heard&felt an irregular clunkiness in my drivetrain, I logicked while riding that I must have a bad chainlink, and I was feeling it go through one of the derailleurs, or go onto or come off of a cog or chainring. I was smart enough to talk it up the killer driveway instead of leaning on the chain. When I got home and inspected, sure enough one side-plate was cracked in half.

Just yesterday I was going mad with my new bike and it's click/rub noise. I'd just put fenders and a rack on. Plus it has disc brakes, all possible noise creators.

Nope

It was the plastic disk ("Dork Disk") on the rear cassette that wasn't on firmly. It was clicking and rubbing. It only took way, way too long to find it. It's now history. But I'm still a dork, I guess.

I had that. Turned out to be the brake cable on the top tube.

Funny, entertaining thread so far.

My story doesn't rate with a lot of these, but it might help someone identify a similar sound. I was hearing a constant tick (sounded like the bottom bracket) with every pedal revolution, but I knew I had just changed the BB not too long ago. This drove me crazy for weeks, maybe months, until one day I happened to jump on the bike with no shoes on. For some mysterious reason, the ticking wasn't there.

It turns out the heel of my sneaker was catching a piece of brake cable and snapping it back every time I pedaled "up" with my right foot. I snipped off some of this extra slack, bent it away from my pedal line, and saved a lot of money by not trying to replace the BB again.

The tick...tick...tick...tick that was an undone snap on the pocket flap of my shorts hitting itself every pedal stroke.

The buzz of old spoke cards, initially only on turns to one side, which had me thinking front hub.

A dry leaf caught between the fender and the tire, out of sight, but not out of mind.

Keys in my pannier.

A bunch of us did the First Group Ride of the Year yesterday, with some wet portions of road and snow-lined roads throughout. One guy was having a persistent squeak that seemed to be in phase with his cadence. He first thought his wheel had shifted and his tire was rubbing his frame, than that the problem was more serious (failed BB, cracked frame) but it turned out to be his cold-weather booties rubbing on his crankarm.

I recently had all of the cables replaced on my cyclocross bike. When I got it back from the shop, I installed a new wheelset. The first time I rode it after that, it was making terrible creaking noises. I rode for about 2 hours and the noises were so annoying that it was driving my crazy. I assumed the noises were the new wheelset, but the noises continued after I swapped out another wheelset that I knew didn't make any noises. So I brought it back to the shop that had replaced the cables. The mechanic took my bike for a short ride and quickly diagnosed the problem -- the seatpost rail clamp. He figured that out by standing up while riding and noticing that it didn't creak when he did that.

It all made sense then, because I had forgotten that I had recently swapped saddles on that bike. The noises immediately disappeared after I properly tightened the seatpost rail clamp.

This intermittent and annoying squeal: https://youtu.be/WpIC8Bx-vfk

Turned out to be an inner rubber seal rubbing the metal free-hub. I need to squirt a light oil in every once in awhile to keep it quiet.

I have a click to hunt down. I think it's the seat rails.

I moved the seat a mm or two forward last week and wouldn't ya' know, the seat starts clicking the next day, gradually getting louder and more frequent with every ride since.

My shiny new bike developed a soft 'cluttering' sound; like a clatter but quieter. Took it back to the shop I bought it from, and he discovered a couple of very loose spokes. All better!

DH's mysterious ticking sound was never diagnosed, but after replacing his bottom bracket, and taking apart and lubing his rear hub, possibly some hair-pulling, it has finally vanished. Reminds me of this, because I'm a nerd.

Two of the most common and easy to spot noises are a loose kickstand striking the crankarm, and a computer magnet hitting the sensor.

Not a noise, but the fix that makes laymen feel stupid is when they have a bike with the rear hand brake locked up. What they didn't realize was the the handlebars had been spun around, wrapping the cable around the head tube.

Every time I put ice in my water bottles I have to figure out where that rattling noise is coming from...

haha, I had that one just the other day!

Also on that ride, at one point I found a water bottle on the side of the road (my favorite kind, Camelbak Podium), so I secured one of my in-use water bottles on my rack with a bungee net. Due to careless securing, a little bit of bungee was lightly scraping the top of my rear tire under the rack. Just lightly enough that it stopped and started cyclically every revolution. Fortunately I was able to eliminate brake rub and tire-on-frame rub pretty quickly, and a closer inspection found the offending bit of bungee

Started hearing a faint click at 3 o'clock on the right pedal last year early spring, got worse in the summer. No other issues just annoying. I tightened every bold I could find, tried different shoes, different SPD cleats, even regular shoes. Still, a faint click - click - click. Took it to the LBS, no issues found. Tried lubing the pedals and ruined one so I replaced with a new set, same clicks. Got fed up and decided I'd take it to a different shop so I dug up my old hybrid to ride in the meantime as this LBS had about a 1 week lead time. Aired the tires, lubed the chain, took 'er for a test ride and guess what? Click-click-click.

After taking a good look at my feet I finally mimicked the rotation motion exact enough and got a click-click-click. My FOOT was clicking, some bone or tendon was snapping. Oh, and it got louder in the summer because I switched to open toed sandals for coolness. Hence the increase in sound. I have a little bit or neuropathy in my feet so I didn't feel it, only hear it.

Most recently:

• Cracked dork disc. Threw it away. One problem solved.
• Thicker stainless spokes on new wheel rubbing. Not gonna worry about it for awhile, maybe it'll wear in.
• Nub of rear brake cable repeatedly flapped by my heel, snapping against the frame. Tucked nub in behind caliper.

Soon as I fix these, some other dumb noise will appear.