Ok today I had another noise source that I don’t think I’ve had before: the large chainring on my road bike (first gen Dura-Ace) has a small metal post that was rubbing against the drive side crank arm at the bottom of the drive side pedal stroke only while standing on hills.
Made a bit of a scraping metal on metal sound just at the bottom part of the pedal stroke when the forces and bending are the highest. I could also get a bit of a creak by pushing inward and down on the pedals by hand.
On the bike, I thought front derailleur was low and touching the chainring or frame flex was letting the inner ring nudge the frame (or maybe the BB was about to fail). Didn’t think that post could be the culprit but the noises quit the moment I put some lube on the end of the post.
Otto