Sincitycycler

I have a Dura-Ace Double 53-39 with 180mm arms on my bike that has Campy everything else. Wouldn't mine getting a Record Crankset someday to match the rest but I noticed that Campagnolo uses the old square taper bottom bracket.

My mechanic says that the exo-bearing units are so much easier to maintain. Are they necessarily stiffer too?

sydney

Your 'mechanic' smokes too much capet, when it comes to the 'maintenance' iisue BS. As to stiffer, it depends on which muppet speaks up. Pros race and make a living on suqare taper campy stuff.

Sincitycycler

OK. Track racers use square taper right and they are always dropping the hammer big time?

sydney

^^^...Yeah, that too.

Thor29

Outboard bearings were created because the new splined bottom brackets (ISIS, Octalink) resulted in smaller bearings and more bearing failures. Square taper bottom brackets work just fine and are very easy to maintain or replace.

CurtloDork

I have two bikes I ride regularly. One has square taper race face cranks/bb, one has Shimano XTR with external bearings, the new style. Here's why I will never replace my square taper with another square taper...1. ease of installation. The shimano cranks/bb went together so painlessly, quickly, effortlessly, that I had to re-read the directions to make sure I wasn't skipping something. 2. stiffness. There is a huge improvement in stiffness and the feeling of your power going into motion with the xtrs...they are so stiff. The bottom bracket is now essentially 2 bearing cups, that's it. no spindle anymore since that is built in to the crank. Therefore, at $59.00 give or take to replace the bb someday, that's nice - and that's for xtr level - and, you can buy just the left or right cup as they need to be replaced...nice. 3. you can take your cranks off a zillion times, for maintenance, switching bikes,cleaning, whatever with virtually no wear and tear. With the taper, the more I took them off, the more I felt like I was wearing the taper out. No more crank pullers, large bolts, etc. It's loosen 2 pinch bolts, unscrew the cap on the left arm, and gently pound out the spindle, and they are off...

I'm sure campy sees the square taper as tradition...but I gotta tell you, that doesn't make it a better system, just because it exists and pros win on them. Pros could win on any interfaced crank system. The ISIS era is over, it was a good idea, it got the bike world to finally try something new and better, which led to the external BB, which will be improved next year and the year after. But for pure strength, ease of installation/removal, and to me replaceability, the new shimano system is superior. I say Shimano and not ALL external BB systems because Race Face, Truvativ, FSA, their ext-BB systems still attach one crankarm with a regular crank bolt...I bought a set of the DeusXC raceface last month to try them out, and while stiffer than the tapers, using a regular bolt/isis interface was not great. The dual pinchbolt on the shimano's is much better.

One last thing, I have always fought creaking, clicking noises and whatnot from my taper cranks. I had tons of them, all top notch stuff since 1991 when I started buying high end bike gear. In one years time with the xtrs, not one single noise of any kind - not ONE. This alone is worth it to me.

halfspeed

Exactly. Outboard bearings are a solution to a problem brought on by a solution for a non-problem.

operator

Switch to outboard B.B and you will immediately gain 30W of power.

wildjim

A personal observation:

I own a lot of Campagnolo these days from Mirage to Record and all of it is Smooth, Solid and reliable.

I recently had a low end Shimano square taper with left side adjustable cup BB become loose and during the adjustment I noticed that it was difficult to adjust enough bearing preload without the bearings feeling binded.

I decided to replace it with a different Shimano BB. I then got a deal on a Shimano Deore LX Hollowtech II crank and external bearing BB set.

It was easy to install and adjust. It has a extremely smooth, solid(one piece) feel when pedaling.

I do not believe it's stiffer, smoother or better than the Campagnolo Crank BB setup; but it does have a solid one piece feel about it. I cannot comment on the durability of the Shimano external bearing crank/bb as I only have about 40 miles on it.

Sincitycycler

Thanks for the good info! Very helpful...

jimmythefly

Hollowtech 2 stuff is stiffer than square taper. I have ridden the same bike back with each set up, and the difference was noticible, both in feel and in one instance in that I could get it to deflect enough to get chain rub on the front derailleur.

Also, you have a Dura-Ace/Record set up, which seems to indicate that your'e going for performance or looks. In this case, the performance choice is Shimano, and if looks is the only consideration, I think you have to go Campy. Especially don't get a Ti-spindle Record BB if stiffnes is what you want.

There's plenty out there that will work just fine, it's really up to you what kind of performance you want.

hypersnazz

Geez, this sort of rhetoric is getting pretty threadbare. You'd think this guy was a bot with four or five responses that just get cycled through.

There are other benefits to running all the stuff Campy makes that requires their silly ancient BB technology, not limited to being paid to. Plus some people will swear by and line up to buy anything Campy makes, even if they started making their bearings out of processed cheese. Pros replace sh*t right away whether it's messed up or not, so I would take their expertise on reliability for the common man with a grain of salt.

- The maintenance issue is negligible. Outboard bearings are not serviceable, but they are cheap.
- The stiffness issue varies from model to model. A solid square taper spindle and a larger hollow spindle are going to exhibit similar flex characteristics.
- Hollow spindles are obviously lighter.
- Outboard bearings are larger and there's more of 'em than bearings carried inside the BB shell. The wear and durability issue are the clearest advantages of outboard bearings.

Roadies don't put much strain on their cranksets and are only starting to learn the lessons BMXers and mountain bikers figured out long ago about tweaking and rounding and generally destroying solid square taper spindles. Larger, splined spindles were born. Not just Isis and Hollowtech but an whole host of other standards, Profile, Primo, Redline, a number of other names relatively unknown outside the BMX world. BMXers were using hollow 19mm and 22mm spindles LONG before even mountain bikers figured it out, with large BB shells and press-fit cups. And what happened when mountain bikers tried putting beefy BMX-inspired spindles into ISO sized bottom brackets? Duh. Smashed bearings. Hence outboard bearings.