I've got an 08 Mercier Kilo TT with stock cranks/BB and a powergrip pedal+strap setup

Everything's been tightened down.

With both sides, on the downstroke, I get a one or two short creaks.

On the upstroke, I get no creaks. Backpedaling gets the same short creaks.

I've checked my pedals and all the crank nuts. Is it just the crappy stock BB/cranks? They're truativ cranks btw. I've only had the bike for about two months.

tighten your seatpost collar. then go to the bike mechanics thread.

A beer says its the chainring bolts

Stand up and pedal. Does it still happen? If so, chainring bolts. If that doesn't work, hammer to BB.

Sheldon Brown has a page on diagnosing creaks---just go there and do what he says.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/creaks.html

If its a cartridge BB, did you grease the threads and the inside of the cup?

-Rob.

Ok I used all my power and might to tighten the crank bolts, pedals, seatpost, even the stem setup and the creaking seems to have disappeared. Now I just gotta figure out why my handlebars creak when standing up to climb hills.

Just so I don't have to start another thread, handlebars creak if they're not tempered right?

Handlebars can creak for a number of reasons. If your stem has a removable face plate, loosen all of the bolts and retighten them equally, taking up the slack evenly across the faceplate as you tighten it, kinda like the lugnuts on a car. You want equal tension at the top and bottom. Also, if the bar is a different diameter than the stem (risers on a road stem with the wrong shims), it can creak.

As for tempering, I have never heard of that.

-Rob.

Oh that's probably it then, the top bolt is tightened more than the bottom. I'll fix it tomorrow. Thanks.

Not a problem.

-Rob.

Ok well evening out the nuts made more creaking. A lot more creaking. Solution? Should I grease everything up?

Grease can't hurt. See what it does. I've found that a lot of cheap stems with 2-bolt faceplates creak when standing and putting a load on one side of the bars or the other.

+1
my friend has this same creaking and he complains about it all the time and he has a two-bolt faceplate.
He figures once he upgrades to a thomson or a more secure 4-bolt faceplate in general, the creaking will stop.

Well it turned out to be my quill stem adapter. I took it out today and regreased everything. I also took the time to dismantle everything else on my ride and regreased. No creaks whatsoever.

i need to get rid of my creaks.. its sooo annoying.

grease!

what do i grease? im going to tighten everything first.

grease the seat first, if that doesn't work, grease the pedals and the grips.