Bottom Bracket Issues

I see all the times complaints about BB and I have always believed that the stardard BSA thread to be the best by far. I have stayed away from bikes that do not have them all I here is creaks and maintenance issues. Is that still pretty much true? I have never had to change a BB on my bike yet and I have 20,000 miles on it. The crank spins like a windmill 6800.

In particular folks like Trek and seems they at times have real maintenance issues. Could this be the case I am overreacting and if I had press fit I would just get use to what it required to keep going. In the same way I still prefer external cables but I have learned to swap them out pretty easy on my Wilier.

The one item that I don't seem to be retro on is that my next bike if I need one or buy one will have disk brakes. It seems that don't hurt and generally I don't like the look but Bianchi I recently saw looked pretty nice. I still prefer the tradition road bike look and these cut. But those stupid BB have me going what are the best BB and in what order to pick?

Deacon Mark

On Wednesday, September 2, 2020 at 11:56:45 AM UTC-7, wrote:
I see all the times complaints about BB and I have always believed that the stardard BSA thread to be the best by far. I have stayed away from bikes that do not have them all I here is creaks and maintenance issues. Is that still pretty much true? I have never had to change a BB on my bike yet and I have 20,000 miles on it. The crank spins like a windmill 6800.

In particular folks like Trek and seems they at times have real maintenance issues. Could this be the case I am overreacting and if I had press fit I would just get use to what it required to keep going. In the same way I still prefer external cables but I have learned to swap them out pretty easy on my Wilier.

The one item that I don't seem to be retro on is that my next bike if I need one or buy one will have disk brakes. It seems that don't hurt and generally I don't like the look but Bianchi I recently saw looked pretty nice. I still prefer the tradition road bike look and these cut. But those stupid BB have me going what are the best BB and in what order to pick?

Deacon Mark
Most of the carbon fiber bikes have press-fit bearings. Remember that BSA bearings are press fit into the cups. (Unless you have an ancient square taper crank) The problems most encountered with carbon fiber bikes are not due to the actual design using press fit bearings but because it is very difficult to maintain a high quality control on bikes that are made mostly in China.

Look and Time frames made in France have VERY few bottom bracket issues. And Trek had them seldom as well but because of complaints mostly from shops that didn't know how to properly repair them they switched to T47 which is a threaded cut with a press-in bearing. For unknown reasons Trek was using el cheapo producto Chinese bearings and had extremely poor quality control especially on the OD. This often ended up in a lose fit which would work the press fit bearing wall larger and larger until they were rattling. All ball bearings on automobiles, airplanes and jet engines are press fit. But they also have extremely good quality control.