hybridbkrdr

Just curious, how much wear do you think you'd have on ball bearings in wheels and a square taper bottom bracket after 1000 miles or 1600km?

easyupbug 

Good quality races and bearings, properly preloaded and lubed, good seals, no extenuating circumstances and in normal conditions (no high pressure spray wash, etc.), de minimis, basically inperceptible.

fietsbob

Do you have equipment measure to the 4th decimal fraction . 0.0001 ?

markjenn

As others are saying, almost nothing unless there is water/dirt entry, poor adjustment, or lack of appropriate grease. I wouldn't hesitate to ride a properly-adjusted, premium quality non-cartridge square taper on dry roads for 10K miles between re-greasings and adjustment. Maybe replace balls at this point if the races show no sign of scoring. OTOH, if you regularly ride in wet conditions or ride off-road, every thousand or two would probably make sense.

Cartridge square tapers typically have better sealing and should be good for 5K or more between replacements, even in challenging conditions. Fortunately, they're cheap.

- Mark

Litespud

I can’t think of any circumstance, short of routinely cycling underwater, where you would need to replace or even think about a decent cartridge square taper BB at 5k. As long as your BB shell can drain, your cartridge BB should be good for many times that. Case in point, I’ve been running the same Chorus BB since ~2003, putting in ~5k/yr, and it’s still smooth

cyccommute 

It would depend. Cartridge bearing bottom brackets are good forever...or almost. 50,000 miles would not be unexpected. Loose ball bearings bottom brackets are good for 4000 to 5000 miles if they are of pretty good quality.

The bottom brackets you find in HelMart bikes are good for about 200 miles...yes, two hundred. I see a lot of them at my local co-op. The keeper on the bearings is usually ground to dust and the bearings are often hemispherical. Getting the cups out of the frame can be a challenge as well. They tend to pull apart and seize in the frame. They aren’t cross threaded. They are so weak physically that the whole cup pulls apart in the frame.

Andrew R Stewart 

Tangent post- Back in the 1970s or 80s the CEO of Huffy said that the average life miles of a Huffy was 76 miles. We joked at work that this meant Huffy were designed to last 77 miles Andy

hybridbkrdr

Thanks for the responses. I forgot to mention I wanted to use this bike in the winter although I keep it indoors after I ride it. My thought right now is to re-grease the wheel bearings after every winter. I was wondering partly because I was thinking either could I give it to a co-op after 5 years or should I get summer wheels for it. (It's not my main bike but has front and rear racks so it's my grocery shopping bike.)

Homebrew01

You can make "seals" for square taper BBs.
Get some squishy foam, like in sofa cushions.
Cut out a small doughnut shape, a bit thicker than the gap between crank arm & BB cup.
Remove cranks.
Slip foam doughnuts over the axle.
Reinstall cranks.

This is my rain bike.

Bill Kapaun

You can have condensation issues when taking a cold bike into a warmer space.
I'd increase the service frequency.
Why not use the same wheels year round?

ChinookTx

If anything, I'd say this would "suck" water and let it seep in slowly, making it even worse, no?

Homebrew01

When I have opened BBs later, they have been in good shape.
It keeps the grit out.
But, I did not do a lot of rain rides.

davidad

I have a road bike with 2 sets of wheels that together have over 122000 miles on them. I overhaul the shimano hubs every 2500 miles or so and replace the radeial bearings on the Suntour fronts as needed. I don't replace balls unless necessary.
I went back to shimano sq. taper BBs and they have over 24000 miles on each of them,
Your weather conditions may call for more frequent maintenance on the hubs.

alcjphil

You live in Quebec, Canada? A huge place. Where exactly? Quebec city has a much colder climate than Montreal, so winter riding conditions are quite different. Montreal conditions feature many more freeze/thaw cycles than Quebec, so you would have to service your bike much more often in Montreal. If you ride in a suburb, your bike will see much less road salt than if you live in the centre of the city. If you ride most often on main roads your bike will suffer more damage than if you ride on side streets. Only you know about your local routes, if you ride often on heavily salted streets, your bike may well require monthly overhauls from what I have seen of streets in Montreal.

cyccommute 

Yea, the bikes I’m seeing are ones that people actually think they can ride more than 77 miles.