Sharpshin

I love my Chris King headset.

'Tis my understanding the esteemed Mr King first went into the bike parts business because he couldn't find a good enough bottom bracket.

My bike is daily transportation and I occasionally tour on it too, I don't mind spending money on it. I do like to just climb on it and ride. That headset prob'ly has more than 8,000 miles on it over the last three years.

So I'm soliciting opinions, ~$200 for a Chris King bottom bracket installed, IIRC warranted to not need messing with for five years.

Worth the money?

Mike

fietsbob

You decide monetary value calculation for your self https://www.chrisking.com/product/th...ottom-bracket/

Im still using the same Shimano 127.5 un Type BB that was In the factory build , 14 years ago.

Square Taper , not External Bearing type , like your bike would be in order to use One of those.

I think The Mudguards help keep the crud from contaminating the Bearing grease..

the bearings being Outboard that can cause easier crud entry..

If you are clever perhaps you can make an additional seal ring to complicate the path for the crud getting in.

I use an O ring put on the spindle before putting the crank arms On, on my Campag Triple

another square taper in that, the Athena BB is better than the Chorus Back when they were doing that..



IDK If the CK bearing seals Come out like the ones in their Headsets, allowing you to flush and repack the bearings
by only pulling the Crank spindle-Tube, and Popping out the seals ..

CK supplied an extra set of seals , useful when there is some chance of buggering the seal geting it out.



...

bulldog1935

SKF - Jan (Compass) imports them, warranties them for 10 years, and their seals are so good you can hose them down.



I have them on all 3 bikes, 2 Ital and 1 BSC

They have roller bearings on the drive side, and oversize balls on the left



https://janheine.wordpress.com/2014/...after-5-years/

Tourist in MSN

Same here, my only non-square taper is a very old three speed that has been in storage for years. I use low end Campy (maybe Veloce) bottom brackets on three bikes that also have Campy triple cranks, Shimano UN55 on my expedition bike, the other two bikes that I regularly ride I do not recall what they have.

gerryl

I'm trying to think of something a $200 bottom bracket does that $35 bottom bracket doesn't do.

bulldog1935

possibly get you home?

If you've ever had a seal go out on an Ital BB, you have to stop every couple of miles to screw the BB back into the shell - forget indexing, it will be all over the place as the BB creeps out.

mstateglfr 

Wouldnt be for my use, but I stay closer to home and find UN55 BBs to be plenty good for my square taper cranks.

The CK anodized headsets are awesome looking for sure. But I wouldnt find value in CK products.

mstateglfr 

Isnt that more of a fauld of the bike design? Why would the threads be set to loosen when pedaling forward? If you were to suggest this design to most anyone, they would look at you like you are nuts.
Or am I misunderstanding your hypothetical issue?

bulldog1935

I made it home just as described on an original Campy Mirage BB with blown seal (using my car key to run it back in), and called Compass.

I think you get what you pay for with an SKF BB and I don't expect to be buying any more for a long time.
I've moved my BSC between frames, and it's still wonderful.

we're cool here - you don't want to buy one, I don't want to buy anything else

For anyone who needs an Italian BB, Jan must have a big inventory, because they've been on sale for $89 for months.

fietsbob

My Italian Threaded Bb's never come Loose Because I get them buggers tight enough.

But since a Lot of Italian companies seek the cost advantages of the TW bike Island factories ,
then they too are ISO threaded..

CK has a 24mm and a 30 MM Bearing ID, so if you have a Shimano Hollowtech, you get one . something else the other..

My touring Bike has a completely different BB, the shell has no holes in it,
so between the bearings there is a lot of Grease.. contact seal on the Outside only,
I popped it out from the inside end when it was Built Up.
17mm Bearing ID, so I could use a Phil Spindle if needed, 25 years, so far so Good.

The frame Part came from Burly tandems circa 1990, those have snap rings , the stoker's BB ..





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bulldog1935

I tighten with an indexing torque wrench to spec

which has nothing to do with a blown seal

escii_35

I think it depends on how offer you kill off your bottom brackets.

This spring I will be installing a new Sugino XD with an Skf square tapper on the commuter. Are the SKF brackets worth 6x+ the cost of a un-55 , I don't know. Normal life span of my UN-55's is 18-24 months.

The travel bike uses generic Shimano outboard BB's. While on tour I bring spares. Why? Much of the third world still runs on free wheels and square taper.

Edit: My lightly used mid 90's race bike has an SKF. Zero issues, but low use and never ridden in the rain.

kingston 

I can't tell if the OP needs a square taper or external BB. In either case, those shimano BBs are so cheap, it's pretty easy to make a case for just replacing them all the time. I installed a Wheels Manufacturing angular contact BB that I got for sixty bucks or something like that on one of my bikes. I figure it must be better than the cheap shimano BB's and less than half the cost of a CK. We'll see how it goes.

Squeezebox

Sounds like maybe you don't have a car, and are not flushing $$ into that rat hole. If so, more durable is a very good thing. Worth the $$ is for only you to decide.

nickw

How much do you value made in USA? You want to make merica' great again, right ? Joking aside, I think there is value in purchasing a locally made product that is able to be rebuilt, that value assessment is individual though.

I've had great luck with Shimano BB's, both square taper and outboard, they are inexpensive, easy to install and easily sourced.

An interesting aside, I was looking for a bearing for one of my wheelsets, it's a unique size than Enduro doesn't carry, so I called a local bearing supply house. I asked if they had anything made domestically, he said the Chinese manuf have new tooling and new factories, they are just as good as anything else out there.

If it was me, I'd buy Shimano and save the dough to spend on something else made in USA that made more of a difference.

trailangel

I'm California. I use Phil Wood BB. No problems..... and they are about 3-4 oz lighter than SKF BB. Phil Wood-The Father of sealed BBs.

bwgride

Nashbar was selling their RPM 7420 bottom brackets for $4.49 (maybe 2006?) so I bought several thinking I could replace these a number of times for the cost of a Phil Wood bottom bracket which is the BB I was considering for my touring bike. I've since installed these BB on several of my bikes, the first installed in 2007 and it has close to 10,000 miles on it. A few months ago I removed the chain from that bike and found that the crank still spins freely with no indication of roughness.

Given my experience, an inexpensive RPM 7420 square taper bottom brackets seem to work very well. I've since decided I don't need to spend $100+ on a BB.

Tourist in MSN

My three bikes with Campy (Italian) bottom brackets, two of them have british thread pattern. The third bike with Italian thread, that bottom bracket is threaded in so tight that it will never work loose.

fietsbob

Ah yes the late Phil Wood , he bought the farm, Literally when he sold the company

moved out of California and spent his last years as a Gentleman farmer ..

robow

My favorite if you want to blow a little more money on something nicer than the Shimano basic stuff (which will get the job done) and yet you don't want to have to mortgage the house. Btw, they do have an even nicer model, the Defiant, that is warranted for 10 years (whatever that means) that won't break the bank at $80.

QB-75 Quad Bottom Bracket

trailangel

Those IRDs are good.
Phil Wood Co. is still 'merican... put together.
I have a couple of the cheap Shimano BBs for fitting purposes.. but they are rough.

Sharpshin

Actually I have three cars.

I also have an incurable condition called Getting Older

I find that riding a bicycle allays the physical symptoms considerably (tho the condition will prove ultimately fatal), and I do enjoy the simplicity of cycling and the self-imposed hardship. Kinda cool to be out in the weather every morning.

I suppose I have been dabbling in the lower end spectrum of bottom brackets.

A $24 Nashbar ISIS bottom bracket served me well for some thousands of miles, but tanked in the UK.

The replacement was an inexpensive ISIS bottom bracket, history and brand unknown to me, that they happened to have laying around at a bike shop that helped me out.

That one started to squeak occasionally at around 1,000 miles (pretty sure Ireland did it in) and is pretty well tanked now. I would like to put a unit in and just be able to forget it.

Thanks for all the advice folks.

The SKF Bottom bracket also comes in ISIS form, sound like it might be the ticket.

What really floors me while looking up these various bottom brackets is the price of some cranksets

I confess, my $50 Nashbar mountain bike triple seems to go round and round and pull the chain just fine.

Mike

BigAura

$14.99 for Shimano square taper. 10,000 miles and buy a new one.

bradtx

@Sharpshin, If I were in your shoes, following two fairly recent BB issues, I too would be looking at the various boutique offerings. The added expense would be justified by my confidence in the product.

Touring doesn't put near the wear and tear on drive train parts that commuting does. I am more likely to buy a single BB that costs the same as three or four more common BBs just to avoid throwing dead BBs into the recycle bin.

If I were to undertake a high mileage tour this summer, I would change my cartridge BB beforehand as it's the only item I can't actually service and it now has a fair amount of miles and age. For my comfortable confidence/cost/value ratio I'd most likely opt for the SKF, FWIW.

Brad

PS My Shimano BBs have served me very well indeed, but I do like to try different products sometimes.

bulldog1935

kinda tough to call SKF roller bearings "boutique"