Bottom bracket creak took me 3 weekends to chase down in Tucson

I got this intermittent creak on my commuter bike in Tucson, only when I pedaled hard out of the saddle. First I torqued the cranks, then the pedals, then the chainring bolts, even swapped the seatpost. On Sunday number three I finally pulled the whole crankset and found a hairline crack in the BB shell, right where the frame was welded. Took about 6 hours total of messing around in my apartment for a 10 minute diagnosis once I actually looked close. Has anyone else burned that much time on a creak that wasn't the bottom bracket at all?

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gavin_clark6d ago

Spent damn near a whole summer chasing a creak on my old hardtail in the Sonoran Desert, same kind of situation, only when I stomped on the pedals. I regreased everything, swapped pedals twice, even replaced the whole crankset. Turned out it was the derailleur hanger rubbing against the frame where it bolted on, just a tiny bit of play. I felt like an idiot when I finally put a light on it and saw the shiny spot. Now I just skip all the obvious stuff and go straight for a spotlight and a torque wrench on every single bolt.