Originally Posted by
justinzane
You may be right. Unfortunately, some of us live in rural areas where other cyclists and LBSs are few and far between. Just to give you an idea, I wanted a stem with a true "7" bend -- about -30 degrees so that I could lower my bars a bit. The LBS owners response was, "Oh, I could probably order one for you. Everyone wants to raise their bars." Followed by, "Oh, its a road bike with a quill stem." This is a place that does not even stock any road or touring bikes, just cyclocross and mountain. And, that suits the population around here who are primarily mountain riders, since we have an abundance of awesome mountain trails.
The takeaway, though, is that there is nowhere I can go to take a look at things myself and very few people to hang with and learn from them and play with their toys. That means that I can either learn on forums and from web publications or I can learn by credit card -- buying tons of stuff and trying it. Since my bike budget rules out the latter, I'm stuck with forums. In fact, the level of cycling around here is such that 4 months of cycling and working on my bike led to the LBS to recommend that my neighbors kids get help from me. Kinda the one-eyed leading the blind.
...as you are by now aware, there is no easy or definitive answer to your question.
There are no authoritative comparison studies, and without them, all you get is personal anecdote, hearsay, and opinion.
I could give you plenty of personal anecdote, I've been doing this stuff a while now, and as a mech at the bike co-op, i certainly get to see what breaks.
But I don't really think that what I've seen will help you all that much.
I can tell you that personally, I try, if a bike comes to me with a loose ball BB that is intact and the bike dates from the 70's-90's,
and it is not a Wallmart sort of bike, I try to preserve it, by service cleaning and readjustment, because my personal experience has
led me to believe those are of better quality in terms of manufacture, hardness, and durability than anything but the very best (and
most expensive) sealed BB units.
This sort of statement here almost always provokes a storm of criticism and pointless discussion about how the person who wrote it
does not know his ass from first base, etc, etc. So I think I share with some of the more experienced who post here a reluctance to
engage in such shenanigans. Phil Wood puts out a darn fine product. Velo Orange square taper units, IME, are also pretty good.
Usually, among the cheaper sealed units, the best are manufactured in Japan by Tange (I think ?)
The cheapest Shimano BB cartridges are more or less famous for either working well or failing withing a month or two. Poor quality control, I think.
Sadly, Yreka is well outside my area of acquaintances, but maybe you can do a little digging here to see if there's anyone close.