PF30 BB woes

[E65Ross]

Well, after just 7-8 months my bottom bracket has decided to give up the ghost and is in need of replacing. Bike shop is saying "that's PF BBs for you" which seems a bit of a joke.

Is there a better/higher quality BB that will last a long longer? I don't mind paying a fair chunk more if it means it'll last a couple of years or more! I know that CeramicSpeed make some which are really expensive, but whether they last considerably longer I have no idea.

Many thanks

Ross

[lufbramatt]

Went through the same recently (although the issue actually turned out to be a pedal bearing).

General consensus seems to be that expensive bearings (SKF etc.) don't really last much longer as it's lack of grease fill and grit getting behind the seals that kills them, so just get cheap ones and regard them as a service item. They're easy to change with a couple of cheap tools. If you don't have a press then some threaded rod and nuts+washers works fine.

[Harpoon]

Are you staying with the same chainset?

If you want to move to Hollowtech, GXP or others, Velotech sell the C-Bear parts:

http://www.velotechservices.co.uk/shop/Vcat3.asp?c...

I came across Hambini this week as well:

https://www.hambini.com/bike-parts/bb30a-to-shiman...

Worth checking the compatibility chart if you have internal cable routing.

[springfan62]

There are conversion kits to Shimano threaded available.

[E65Ross]

Harpoon said:

Are you staying with the same chainset?

If you want to move to Hollowtech, GXP or others, Velotech sell the C-Bear parts:

http://www.velotechservices.co.uk/shop/Vcat3.asp?c...

I came across Hambini this week as well:

https://www.hambini.com/bike-parts/bb30a-to-shiman...

Worth checking the compatibility chart if you have internal cable routing.

Sticking with the same chainset; I'm using a Rotor system as it has a Power2Max NGeco power meter installed, using the original 52/36 Ultegra chain rings; it has R8070 DI2....not sure what would be the better option?

Seems a bit daft if these things can cost £100 or so and you get through them every 6 months!! Ridiculous!

[Harpoon]

Interesting video here comparing steel and ceramic bearings from BBs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7iZVfSDbiA

[lufbramatt]

Can't you just replace the bearings rather than the whole BB. I thought they use 6806 sealed cartridge bearings like a BB30. Can get a pair of them for £15-20.

[Your Dad]

Take a look at the offerings from Hope, I replaced a creaky SRAM PF30 (which failed almost as soon as it was used) with a Hope unit.

[Mr Ted]

lufbramatt said:

Can't you just replace the bearings rather than the whole BB. I thought they use 6806 sealed cartridge bearings like a BB30. Can get a pair of them for £15-20.

Good idea, try not to remove and replace the whole BB too many times as eventually you will get the dreaded BB creak and have to glue the devils in!! SRAM even tells you what glue to use in one of their guides!

If you only get 6 months life out any BB then I would suspect installation problems, or you ride through muddy swamps, 90% of early bearing failure is due to poor installation practices according to a mate who sold bearings for a living!

[E65Ross]

Update - turns out it isn't the BB! The place who installed my power meter cranks didn't tighten the outer chain ring enough and it's worked loose.....I quickly had to run the crank tool to them and they're going to do it now (as well as the di2 cable and other bits it's gone in for)....they're 99% confident that's the cause!! They took the BB out and said it looks absolutely fine so that's good news.

The bad news is....I'll need to do another FTP test, as they asked "have you had some odd power readings" to which I have. It seems fairly consistent but I have had the odd time where it reports weird values. One ride I produced over 24kW (rofl) and another ride where what felt like 200W was showing as around 7W! Although most of the time it seemed fairly consistent, but worth doing another FTP test anyway to confirm.

The good news as well....it means it should be ready for collection for the BH weekend!

[BeirutTaxi]

The sooner the industry bins off PF bearings and returns to threaded units the better. Any bike mechanic worth their salt will agree.

[E65Ross]

BeirutTaxi said:

The sooner the industry bins off PF bearings and returns to threaded units the better. Any bike mechanic worth their salt will agree.

Yup, bike mechanic said they definitely have their pros....but the durability is a huge con and basically outweighs all of the pros. He did say he took my BB out, has regreased it etc anyway but said it looks fine. I'm typically a fast spinner and don't put out huge watts being the lightweight that I am which should help the BB longevity.

Not sure I need to do an FTP test to be honest, just used my other bike for a short blast/hill rep session and power numbers seemed extremely similar to that of the Canyon.

Edited by E65Ross on Wednesday 22 August 19:31

[Darft Vader]

Press fit does seem to be troublesome and high maintenance https://youtu.be/G_ugobn4lw8