Originally Posted by
skyel
Is there any way to tell what kind of bottom bracket the cranks are attached to without removing the crankset? I don't have the tools to do that. I'm sorry that this seems ridiculous but I definitely need a new frame (mine is too large for me). And I don't have a lot of money to buy new equipment. I already have a full ultegra groupset ready to be put on a bike that will fit it. I'm taking the time to look for a frame that is the right size and hopefully that will fit my crankset.
Alright.
You probably have an ultegra 6600. It doesn't really matter, because all recent Shimano cranks have a 24mm spindle and that works best with traditional threaded bottom brackets (British or Italian). Can you tell me about your current frame? If it's also from around 2007-2008 it's 90% that it has british threaded bottom bracket. It's quite hard to tell the exact type without removing the crank though.
In general I think the best to go with BSA (british threaded) frames especially that you already have shimano cranks. The problem is that most of the framesets nowadays have some other "standard". In that case make sure you know the BB standard of the frame you buy AND the cost of making your crank work with it. If you only want to make it work you can buy an adapter for just about any modern BB standards. Also you can later upgrade to conversion bottom brackets made especially for your situation. But both of these options will cost you something.
Originally Posted by
loimpact
I don't know if we've mentioned it in a while so I'll go for it (for personal reasons).....
Anybody else think it's about time for Shimano to get on board & make some BB30 cranks?
(Even if I didn't have a BB30 bike, I'd still argue, it's long overdue)
IMHO BB30 is a failed standard. Some of the standards with 30mm spindles are better than others, but I still think that there is no real benefit of moving from 24mm to 30mm spindles. You can buy a conversion BB for every situation now, so it's not a real problem if you know what you're doing. If shimano moved to 30mm, it would break compatibility with all of their modern cranksets and I think it would be a painful move (especially for current users). I'm not saying it won't happen sometime, but I'm gonna be very sad that day.