Chain or Bottom Bracket Creaking Noises

Steve Sr. wrote:
Hello,

I have a fairly new titanium frame bike with an Ultegra 10 speed
group. The bike now has about 2800 miles on it.

Within the last couple of hundred miles or so it has developed an
annoying creaking noise that seems to emanate from the BB area.

It also seems to be worse at certain temperatures. Last Saturday's
ride started off in the low 50's and the bike was quiet. as the
temperature rose into the mid-upper 70's the noise got louder and more
frequent.

I have also noticed that the noise seems worse at easy/moderate pedal
effort. Under heavy load or if I purposely maintain constant force on
the drive train the noise lessens or goes away. Most of the time the
noise seems synchronized to the crank rotation other times the noise
is pretty much constant and almost sounds synchronized with chain
rotation. Or maybe it is just that weird Wipperman connect link making
its way through the jockey pulleys!

I took the bike to the shop and they removed cleaned and then
reinstalled the BB. They also used a generous amount of anti-seize on
the threads as I could tell from the remnants around the BB cups.

I went out at lunch today when it was in the mid-70's as well and the
noise was still there.

So fixing the usual cause of these squeaks seems to have made
absolutely no difference. Any other thoughts on where this noise could
be coming from?

My only other thought is that the noise is still in the BB only in
sealed bearing cup and not where the cup attaches to the frame. Do
these external BB designs have this kind of problem? Is it possible
that this BB is toast after only 2800 miles?

Grease onto the BB shaft and splines?Pedals? Ride w/o cycling shoes?
Didn't the bike shop tetest ride the thing? These BBs are susceptible
to being noisey if things aren't tight and greased.


Do chains ever make this kind of noise? The chain has been lubed with
Pro-link. Under no load it doesn't appear to have any tight links
unless there is still some grit in there that is causing it to bind
only under load.

Any ideas? Did I miss anything?

Thanks as always for your thoughts,

Steve