Allen

Cross posting this here and in Mechanics

What's y'all's opinion of BB30 bottom bracket shells?

Many thanks,

--Allen

meech151 

I have never used one but I had a customer who was interested in one so I called Mark at Paragon Machine Works and after talking about it we both agreed it wasn't an advantage in this particular situation. I am not sure what the issues were because it has been a while but I believe you need a special tool that wasn't very cheap and I think there may have been some issue with the type of crank you use, not exactly sure but it wasn't worth it for one frame. It may work for your situation. I probably didn't help you much so a couple more opinions wouldn't hurt. Good luck.

Allen

I had Mark send me one the other day (<$10 so what the hell).
I'm thinking of using it on a bamboo build because of the width of the bamboo.
I also liked that it is (sorta) threaded on the outside to give the epoxy something to grip.
Scoring a steel shell, although not hard is a bit of a PITA.

Thanks Meech.

ZXiMan

I personally like BB30. *IF* the bottom bracket area has been reinforced properly, it does provide an increase in BB stiffness with the BB30 set-up. Better Q-factor, no BB cups or external bearings, cleaner looking and saves you 100 grams or so depending on whos BB30 crankset you use. You can also use standard non BB30 cranksets with adaptors (they are cheap) although that defeats alot of the purpose.