[Closed] Bike creak driving me insane - where next

Saddle rails?

You've covered crank bolts when the BB was replaced, so my next guess would be rear wheel area.

Good luck, I'm struggling to eliminate a creak on my road bike and it's irritating as hell!

Si

rear axle.

Loose spoke

Rear axle/quickrelease, took me an age to narrow a creaking noise to that. Dab of oil along the shaft and it was sorted.

lower shock bushing worn?

thats what always seems to start creaking first on my bike, and is usually more noticeable with the pedal bob on road / fire roads like you describe

even if its all torqued up correctly if the bushings worn it will creak

Quick release skewers, especially if they are 'open', non-Shimano ones!
They've been the creaks culprit on 2 of my bikes, and both times I would've sworn it was the BB or the cranks.

Don't rule out headset .. I've had many many bb sound creaks that have been dry/grit in headset cups.. Clean and light grease solves it

Loose rear mech hanger !! I kid you not.

Chainring bolts?

Non driverside splines wearing either in arm and/or axle

Same suggestion as taxi25. This one drove me bloody insane tracking down.
Removed, cleaned, applied copper slip and refitted, then silence, sweet, sweet silence (until the BB started....).

Headset bearings!!

On my meta v4, the following have creaked

Rear hanger( loose )
BB
Saddle
Forks
headset

Could also be rear hub, pedal or frame bearing

Good luck, drove me mad finding them.

Make sure your cassette is firmly tightened with the lock ring, I had an annoying creak.

It was loose (although the cassette wasn't rattling about), tightened it up to what I thought was pretty damn tight, still happening. Tightened it up some more popeye stylee, creak gone.

Standing up? Sitting down? Only when honking on the bars or also when spinning? So many things it could be that you can only get ideas rather than solutions from other's experiences. I just had a headset creak on the roadbike, sorted two weeks ago by greasing everything up (dry and dusty inside); other creaks over the years have been due to a) seat-tube inserts breaking loose, b) cracked bottom bracket/seat-tube welds, c) crap Octalink BB/crank splined interface, d) square taper BB driveside cup breaking loose from cassette, e) loose rear mech hanger, as above, f) pedal bearings going, g) ovalised headtube. Swap out, be methodical. Sounds like you've eliminated some of those options. I'd be looking at the headset area given you haven't already.

Thompson Creakpost? I went nuts looking for a creak, sorted by ditching the Thompson Elite for an Easton post.

I'd already had the saddle off, cleaned the rails, lightly greased and put back, creaking after 30 minutes riding.

Easton post has been silent for over a year. No idea what it was but boy did that Thompson Elite make a racket.

Rear axle......it's about the only thing I hadn't checked/replaced. Greased it, and no more creak.....mine only creaked on the right leg power stroke.....

I had exact same issue when cranking down on the pedals, More noticeable in the lower range of the cassette.

Stripped the bike down and it turned out to be the mech hanger. Dab of grease behind it and its now creak free.

Cracked crank bolt?

Worn / dirty Headset bearings or loose headset

very common cause of creaking on each pedal stroke.

Loose spoke / cracked nipple or chainring bolts..

Crank spider?

I had this after hot and dusty conditions. Tracked it down to pedal/crank interfaces despite grease and being tight. Gave them a squirt of WD40 both sides and it disappeared immediately. On two bikes.

Oh aye, and another recent one - dry beneath inboard pedal axle seal, just kept getting worse and worse, Cured mid-ride by dropping a blob of chain oil after prising up seal, more permanently by taking out axle, removing seal and greasing it up. Specific symptoms were that it was constant with every crank revolution, whatever gear I was in, standing or seated, with increasing resistance on that pedal (driveside), so quite easy to diagnose.

gear cable ferrules (correct term? the little metal/plastic bits on the end of outers) creaking in the stays?

another vote for rear axle here. if my hope skewers aren't very tight there is a creak. (and greasing helps too..)

also, have had creaks from seat rails, a light greasing sorted those.

also had to do DU bushings, and crank spider bolts to get rid of squeaks. did my BB too but that wasn't the issue 🙂

So it's worse on dry days. On wet days can disappear, same noise when pedalling light or hard, doesn't matter if standing or sitting. Back end of bike sounds like an good place to start. Will check axle and hanger. Sunny night so will get the stand in garden and start slapping grease round my back end see what happens

BB30 axles will creak and click as they bend and fret inside the bearing inner races. Take apart, clean and apply bearing fit compound.

Squirt some GT85 on your jockey wheels, sorted my mystery squeak out.

My money's on a cracked freehub. I claim my £5.00 8)

Meta V4 here. It creaked like a loud dry creak on each pedal stroke. NOT when not pedalling. Check your spline/non driveside crank arm. Mine eventaully started unwinding itself.

My first though, after checking the obvious, is cracked freehub. Even then, I cured a mystery creak just by servicing the freehub.

Loose cassette locknut.

This has just solved my mystery creak ( the one last October was due to a cracked chainstay!)

Had this fof the past two weeks, strangly as first time ever it was my pedals, loose spindle.

an easy way to identify many creaks ( did it with my susser pivots ) is to stop when the noise appears and squirt a bit of water on each pivot (one by one ) then remount and pedal way . you can do this on many areas till the noise goes ( water temporarily lubes many interfaces). when it finally disappears ( hopefully) you'll know where it was coming from and can remove/grease/adjust the offending item. _Obviously won't work in every case but quickly pinpointed the location of my annoying creak.

If your running a clutch rear mech take the cover off and stick a load of grease in. I chased a creak for weeks and it turned out to be the clutch creaking under suspension compression while climbing. The clutch was dry as a bone!

Do you have Dual Position Pikes??

SOLVED well so far so good till next time..... Rear mech hanger a bit loose, nipped it up and creak has gone (well did last night) no doubt new one by end of the weekend

Kaiser [an easy way to identify many creaks ( did it with my susser pivots ) is to stop when the noise appears and squirt a bit of water on each pivot (one by one ) then remount and pedal way . you can do this on many areas till the noise goes ( water temporarily lubes many interfaces). when it finally disappears ( hopefully) you'll know where it was coming from and can remove/grease/adjust the offending item. _Obviously won't work in every case but quickly pinpointed the location of my annoying creak]

Like this tip - maybe not water but small dab of ptfe lube probs do the same