Originally Posted by
billridesbikes
As an engineer I will say engineering problems are almost never as simple as lay people make them out to be. Probably especially true in the bicycle industry where you can’t throw nearly unlimited money at a problem until it goes away.
For reference, I'm not an engineer but I am a workinc mechanic. Sure, of course, but there are some seriously misplaced priorities when they engineer a 60g weight savings, or a half watt of drag, off a frameset and deliver frames with bb shells way out of tolerance. This has a huge impact on user experience, has real impacts on mechanical efficiency, and also is a massive time and money suck for local retailers. Also some companies have way more pf bb problems than others. This has been such a problem that threaded shells are making a comeback for road/gravel (often as T47).
This is made worse by bad ideas being common, like 30mm spindles being shoved in BB86/92 shells with impossibly thin bearings.