The creak from the BB region on my road bike is beginning to annoy me now. It’s there when I mash the pedals up hill.
I swapped the pedals it was still there.
I took the cranks off and tightened the BB cups as tight as I could.
I’ve similarly tightened the crank bolts as hard as I can get them.
What next?
New BB cups, or is it a sure sign that the frame is cracked and I’m going to get killed to death next time I ride it?
(PS the bike was new less than a year ago and has probably done less than 500 miles, tiagra cranks/BB)

rear hanger? Rear skewer?

Yeh try poping a bit of oil on the skewers.

Good idea I’ll check the mech hanger. Skewer is tight and shifting ok though.
EDIT: will oil everything in sight!

How about cleaning and regressing the bb cups rather than just tightning

YOu may have over tightened the crank bolts
Is it ht2?
I’ve had same problem twice, both imes it was over tightened bolts

Still pop some oil on the QR it maybe just dry.

Clean under casette? Freehub? I had an annoying tick and it was grit under there.

I took the cranks off and tightened the BB cups as tight as I could.

If it’s an internal BB you may not have tightened them enough. 60Nm is about right which is seriously tight.

And as said above taking the cups out, sterilising them and then regreasing them will nearly always fix it. Be sure to grease the cups on the inside where they touch the BB housing.

Also worth checking the saddle and sp if you haven’t already done so

Yes its HT2
Do you mean the bolts that hold the left crank arm on?
I meant the chainring bolts in my post, sorry, I realise it reads wrong. I was careful not to overtighten the crank arm bolts- just used a standard allen key. Haven’t got a torque wrench, just rely on “engineer’s feel” whatever that is!
Maybe just strip it all down and put it back together clean and re-greased!

If its like the MTB HT11 setup then you do not need to over tighten the star shapped nut. Its just there to preload the bearings.

even clean the BB spacers, and end caps on the BB. any dirt in there can cause a creak

Outside bet – take off/refit your cleats with a dab of grease on each interface…..

If none of the above helps, check the inside of your chainstays at the BB end. A small crack there can be hidden by dirt and make plenty noise.

What frame is it? I had this problem on my carbon planet x and it was due to the front mech cable passing through the bb shell and rubbing on the frame.

I thread it through some plastic tubing and no more problems.

My vote is the handlebars/stem 🙂 I would suggest riding with no hands to rule them out, but if you have to mash the pedals on a hill to get the creak this probably isn’t possible!

check yout seat – honest, took me about a day to find out that it was it that was creaking, everytime I was pedalling hard also ‘sitting’ hard,

Try checking you handlebar stem, saddle and seatpost. And everything else above!

+1 for greasing up the rear QR skewer
(and rest of above)

To to summarise the above – check everything, strip it right back and rebuild 😉
Not terribly helpful are we 😉