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New BB 'standards' - which one would you choose?

2558 Views 16 Replies 14 Participants Last post by Schmucker, Mar 6, 2011

Joe Nation

Discussion Starter · Feb 17, 2011

Given the following conditions, which of the new bottom bracket 'standards' - BB30, BB86/BB90/whatever, BBright, Look ZED2 - would you choose to build your frames with, and why?

1. Your current jig can be easily adjusted to fit, and you already have any other extra tools you might need (facing tools, bigger holesaws for mitring, etc).
2. Shells and/or lugs are readily available in whatever size/style/material you prefer.
3. The only work required on your part (above and beyond what you would normally do) is ordering different parts and jigging things up differently.
4. It would cost you roughly the same.
5. You can only pick one (but you can still use threaded shells).

In other words, which would you choose based on engineering and design criteria alone? If you categorically wouldn't use any of them, why not? Have any of you already made the switch? Thoughts?

No real reason for asking other than curiosity. Tapered and 1.5 head tubes seem to have picked up a fairly decent following amoung the handbuilt crowd, but for lack of availability of suitable tubing. Will BBs suffer the same problem? I've yet to hear much about BBright outside of Cervelo circles, but it does seem like a good combination of BB30 and BB90 (ie bigger bearings and spindle than HT2/BB90, wider bearing spacing than BB30). And ZED2 is basically a 21st century version of the old BMX one-piece crank, but really light and stiff.

1 - 17 of 17 Posts

Walt

· #2 · Feb 17, 2011

Old skool, baby!

Regular old threaded shell for me. In steel, I don't see much of an advantage for any of the other systems out there, especially since you can run a BB30 spindle if you really want to (see the Hive system).

If I had to switch, it would probably be one of the Shimano setups.

-Walt

Joe Nation said:
Given the following conditions, which of the new bottom bracket 'standards' - BB30, BB86/BB90/whatever, BBright, Look ZED2 - would you choose to build your frames with, and why?

1. Your current jig can be easily adjusted to fit, and you already have any other extra tools you might need (facing tools, bigger holesaws for mitring, etc).
2. Shells and/or lugs are readily available in whatever size/style/material you prefer.
3. The only work required on your part (above and beyond what you would normally do) is ordering different parts and jigging things up differently.
4. It would cost you roughly the same.
5. You can only pick one (but you can still use threaded shells).

In other words, which would you choose based on engineering and design criteria alone? If you categorically wouldn't use any of them, why not? Have any of you already made the switch? Thoughts?

No real reason for asking other than curiosity. Tapered and 1.5 head tubes seem to have picked up a fairly decent following amoung the handbuilt crowd, but for lack of availability of suitable tubing. Will BBs suffer the same problem? I've yet to hear much about BBright outside of Cervelo circles, but it does seem like a good combination of BB30 and BB90 (ie bigger bearings and spindle than HT2/BB90, wider bearing spacing than BB30). And ZED2 is basically a 21st century version of the old BMX one-piece crank, but really light and stiff.

febikes

· #3 · Feb 17, 2011

Material pays a part in all of this. Steel is dense, ti, aluminum and mag less so and carbon at the extreme.

With carbon something like ZED2 makes a lot of sense because the cost in terms of weight for the large size is small and the strength and stiffness improvement is larger.

With aluminum styles like BB90 make a lot of sense because they make sense given the nature of the material.

With a steel bike I don't see any benefit of the larger shell diameter size but I am still very new to all of this and have yet to build my own bike. I feel the best approach is traditional threaded shells with 68mm (or even smaller good for road bikes). For MTB, a 73mm shell makes sense to me even at the small cost in terms of weight increase. For a steel TT bike something like an Obree style cut down job is the way to go. It just seems that bulking up the size of head tubes and shells adds weight without really improving the ride and/or durability of the bike. I also think press fit bearings are not really a good thing for the nature of the material.

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Thylacine

· #4 · Feb 17, 2011

For steel and Ti, the standard English threaded BB is still the best standard, so I agree with Walt.

I've had some interesting conversations with colleagues about BB standards over the past 18 months. Essentially what it boils down to is that the 'new standards' are not designed for Steel and Titanium - they're designed for mass produced Aluminium and Carbon bikes.

What laypeople don't consider is that it has little to do with jigs and holesaws - it's post-weld processing that's the issue. Frames move, and even if you do have a dedicated fixture and mill to post-weld ream a BB, unless that BB has a fair bit of meat to it, because of the localised heat put into it, BB's want to ovalise themselves (well, not ovalised really, but....semantics) - even after the frame is finished.

As I understand it, Darren Crisp is one of the few people that have a good track record with press fit bottom brackets, and even one of my colleagues who I consider one of the best fabricators out there has said to me that 1 in 5 will have some sort of creaking issue. I'd hazard a guess that a big chunk of builders that are using press fit BB's don't really understand what they've signed up for.

The great thing about screw-in bottom brackets is that they're self-centreing and require (in the grand scheme of things) very little post weld processing. They're not a large diameter or thin walled so they can take the heat of having 4 tubes welded to them and about a third where nothing is welded to them.

It's pretty crappy that there are all these new standards which have almost no benefit for custom Steel and Ti bikes, but have the marketing juggernauts of the majors behind them touting them as the second coming.

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Smokebikes

· #5 · Feb 17, 2011

Thylacine said:
For steel and Ti, the standard English threaded BB is still the best standard, so I agree with Walt.

I've had some interesting conversations with colleagues about BB standards over the past 18 months. Essentially what it boils down to is that the 'new standards' are not designed for Steel and Titanium - they're designed for mass produced Aluminium and Carbon bikes.

What laypeople don't consider is that it has little to do with jigs and holesaws - it's post-weld processing that's the issue. Frames move, and even if you do have a dedicated fixture and mill to post-weld ream a BB, unless that BB has a fair bit of meat to it, because of the localised heat put into it, BB's want to ovalise themselves (well, not ovalised really, but....semantics) - even after the frame is finished.

As I understand it, Darren Crisp is one of the few people that have a good track record with press fit bottom brackets, and even one of my colleagues who I consider one of the best fabricators out there has said to me that 1 in 5 will have some sort of creaking issue. I'd hazard a guess that a big chunk of builders that are using press fit BB's don't really understand what they've signed up for.

The great thing about screw-in bottom brackets is that they're self-centreing and require (in the grand scheme of things) very little post weld processing. They're not a large diameter or thin walled so they can take the heat of having 4 tubes welded to them and about a third where nothing is welded to them.

It's pretty crappy that there are all these new standards which have almost no benefit for custom Steel and Ti bikes, but have the marketing juggernauts of the majors behind them touting them as the second coming.

Very well stated, Thylacine.........thanks for posting, now I understand things a little better. :thumbsup:

HomeGrownSS

· #6 · Feb 17, 2011

Thylacine said:
For steel and Ti, the standard English threaded BB is still the best standard, so I agree with Walt.

I've had some interesting conversations with colleagues about BB standards over the past 18 months. Essentially what it boils down to is that the 'new standards' are not designed for Steel and Titanium - they're designed for mass produced Aluminium and Carbon bikes.

What laypeople don't consider is that it has little to do with jigs and holesaws - it's post-weld processing that's the issue. Frames move, and even if you do have a dedicated fixture and mill to post-weld ream a BB, unless that BB has a fair bit of meat to it, because of the localised heat put into it, BB's want to ovalise themselves (well, not ovalised really, but....semantics) - even after the frame is finished.

As I understand it, Darren Crisp is one of the few people that have a good track record with press fit bottom brackets, and even one of my colleagues who I consider one of the best fabricators out there has said to me that 1 in 5 will have some sort of creaking issue. I'd hazard a guess that a big chunk of builders that are using press fit BB's don't really understand what they've signed up for.

The great thing about screw-in bottom brackets is that they're self-centreing and require (in the grand scheme of things) very little post weld processing. They're not a large diameter or thin walled so they can take the heat of having 4 tubes welded to them and about a third where nothing is welded to them.

It's pretty crappy that there are all these new standards which have almost no benefit for custom Steel and Ti bikes, but have the marketing juggernauts of the majors behind them touting them as the second coming.

sounds a bit like the stuff neil from frameforum says...hehe

Thylacine

· #7 · Feb 17, 2011

If I was Neil, I'd be waiting for someone to disagree with me before slandering them and then kicking them off the forum before they could reply.

TimT

· #8 · Feb 17, 2011

This is why I like the 9er CYA system. What I don't like about it is its 2.170 interface. I wish some one would make this sort of system with a 2.125 interface so we could use standard EBB shells. For the record I'm making a shell for my new frame using the CYA. I'll post picks later.

Tim

pvd

· #9 · Feb 17, 2011

BB86/92 for everything.

1. I've used it for a few years and it works awesome.
2. It works with Shimano cranks which are the best you can buy.
3. Spreads the chainstays nice and wide for better designs from road to DH.
4. It's simple.
5. It's just the best way to do it.

Mojo Man

· #10 · Mar 5, 2011

Thylacine said:
For steel and Ti, the standard English threaded BB is still the best standard, so I agree with Walt.

I've had some interesting conversations with colleagues about BB standards over the past 18 months. Essentially what it boils down to is that the 'new standards' are not designed for Steel and Titanium - they're designed for mass produced Aluminium and Carbon bikes.

What laypeople don't consider is that it has little to do with jigs and holesaws - it's post-weld processing that's the issue. Frames move, and even if you do have a dedicated fixture and mill to post-weld ream a BB, unless that BB has a fair bit of meat to it, because of the localised heat put into it, BB's want to ovalise themselves (well, not ovalised really, but....semantics) - even after the frame is finished.

As I understand it, Darren Crisp is one of the few people that have a good track record with press fit bottom brackets, and even one of my colleagues who I consider one of the best fabricators out there has said to me that 1 in 5 will have some sort of creaking issue. I'd hazard a guess that a big chunk of builders that are using press fit BB's don't really understand what they've signed up for.

The great thing about screw-in bottom brackets is that they're self-centreing and require (in the grand scheme of things) very little post weld processing. They're not a large diameter or thin walled so they can take the heat of having 4 tubes welded to them and about a third where nothing is welded to them.

It's pretty crappy that there are all these new standards which have almost no benefit for custom Steel and Ti bikes, but have the marketing juggernauts of the majors behind them touting them as the second coming.

Thanks for making me feel good about having the standard English threaded BB on my new Ti frame I just ordered. Can't get any creaking with threaded cups, did I say I hate creaking noises?. Actualy my old Off Road Mtn bike from the early 90's used a press fit style cup, what a pc of sh#t to fix after not maintaining for a decade.

Some times a step forward is really a step backwards

Mojo

BrokenBones

· #11 · Mar 5, 2011

Ditto for me

Thanks to everyone for all of the excellent information. I too am starting a custom Ti frame with a builder who gave me the option for BB30 or threaded. Initially I chose BB30, liking the concept, and supposed advantages - then I went home and did more research...

Forum threads like this one and others like this: http://forums.serotta.com/showthread.php?t=44485&page=2&pp=15 (see David Kirk @ post 21 among others) dissuaded me from making what I think would be a wrong decision for my needs, riding style, and maintenance habits;

1. A custom frame is a sizable investment (not a throw-away) that I keep for many years, and tens of thousands of miles. I want long, trouble-free service from them.

2. I'm a strong rider who pushes tall gears and favors lower cadences for most riding including hills. Any creaks or noises drive me crazy.

3. I like to take my bikes apart occasionally to clean and service them. Pressing bearings (headsets, etc.) in and out of a frame should be a rare occurrence because of the hazard of wear, damage, or both.

In the end, it became apparent to me that BB30 was not compatible with my requirements, and I've asked my builder to use a traditional threaded BB shell.

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MrCookie

· #12 · Mar 6, 2011

A side tangent of sorts, I still like ISIS. The bearings last way longer than the cheap outboard crap that I have seen/fixed for others.

It's easy to find claims that there are significant gains, yada yada... In the end it's VHS vs BetaMax all over again (err, I mean Blue Ray vs HD DVD).

Until frames that fit my Middleburns and ISIS BB go away (or ISIS BB's become extinct...), that's what I am using.

PatSM

· #13 · Mar 6, 2011

Hey does anyone know if you can use a sram crankset with a shimano BB? A buddy of mine has a Pivot and he wants to upgrade from an SLX crankset to a XTR but he wouldn't mind trying out a high end Sram or maybe a Truvativ Noir (found a really good deal). His BB is pressed in I believe?

smudge

· #14 · Mar 6, 2011

PatSM said:
Hey does anyone know if you can use a sram crankset with a shimano BB? A buddy of mine has a Pivot and he wants to upgrade from an SLX crankset to a XTR but he wouldn't mind trying out a high end Sram or maybe a Truvativ Noir (found a really good deal). His BB is pressed in I believe?

They're not compatible.

PatSM

· #15 · Mar 6, 2011

Thanks. That would have been too easy.

Joe Nation

Discussion Starter · #16 · Mar 6, 2011

The RH bearing is the same, but the left is different. Hope (and a couple of others) make an adaptor to fit a GXP (Sram/Truvativ) crank into a Hollowtech 2 BB. There is potential for creaking/increased wear etc., however.

Schmucker

· #17 · Mar 6, 2011

I like all the stuff that's coming out for BB30. You can convert to threaded or an EBB.

What about mass produced steel bikes? All-City Nature Boy Zona and their new road bike will have BB30. Does this seem dumb to you guys?

1 - 17 of 17 Posts

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