pacificcyclist

Please provide me with the model number and serial number of that XT bottom bracket that you claimed provides decades of service. I already went through 1 XT bottom bracket in less than a decade, more like 8000 miles in a year. I guess I am not so lucky.

If you do not tour a lot and only tour in perfectly timed weather, any bottom bracket will last decades. Having said that, it is up to the original poster to choose whichever system fits him best. We can always provide suggestions. No system is best. If it were, no one will sell square taper anymore.

Guess what? People still sell square taper BB!

balindamood

Cartidges have been around long enough you have half a chance of finding something close. Square-taper cup-and-cones will last nearly forever with proper maintenance and you can get parts nearly anywhere. If you are touring in the states, Japan/Taiwan, Austrailia/New Zeeland or western Europe, you can get anything. I can pack a tool to remove it, but it won't do me a %^%$ bit of good if I cannot find a Shimano-decided-to-do-it-this-way-for-three-years-and-then-change-it-again part in Lost-Corn-Field, Columbia.

The only place current generation XT/XTR parts will last for decades is if they don't leave the boxes they came shipped in.

geachyguy

Hi,
Thanks again everyone.
I have all but made up my mind, so I thought I should let anyone who's interested know. I think I will get the Sugino XD 600 crankset, with the Shimano UN54 BB, though I think I will preemptively buy the replacement metal left cup, as the stock left cup is plastic and seems to break easily. Why Shimano would make one of the cups plastic is beyond me, and it also irks me that the BB costs about as much as the replacement metal cup, but c'est la vie.

cyccommute 

The point of a cartridge bearing is that you replace it when it wears out. You replace loose bearings when they wear out too...and you usually replace the cones, cups and spindles too because they have become contaminated and pitted.

Because you can replace a cartridge bearing and if you made a wise choice of choosing an external bearing BB that has replaceable bearings - something that you should do if you are truly going way off beaten path - replacement cartridge bearings should be available anywhere there are cars. The bearings used in external bearing BB, internal BB, hubs, and headsets are standard size bearings that have applications in automobiles around the world. Finding a replacement shouldn't be any harder than finding a square taper bottom bracket.

Quite frankly, I've never had any cartridge bearing bottom bracket of brand fail. I've had lots of old cup and spindle loose bearing bottom brackets that GeoKrpn thinks are so great fail. But I've had cheap Shimano bottom brackets, expensive Shimano BB, Race Face and Sram on various bicycles over thousands of miles. I've ridden them hard off-road, I've ridden them on-road, I've ridden them on tours, and I've ridden them on day-to-day commuting which is far harder on equipment than touring and comparable to off-road riding. Not a single one of those BBs has ever 'failed'. They've been replaced with newer, better equipment but not a single one of them has seized, worn out or even gotten rough. I've only ever had 3 cartridge bearings go out on me at all and all of those were hub bearings which are smaller and less robust.

And, no, I don't baby my parts. I ride them, abuse them and replace as necessary. Almost all of the parts I replace are 'necessary' in that they are upgrades. I have very few parts actually wear out and fail...other than tires and brake pads.

You can get nostalgic all you want about cup and cone square taper bottom brackets. I won't be joining you. They were - and continue to be - old inferior technology. They were prone to infiltration by water and dirt even with seals. They are more difficult to work on than even cartridge bearing BB, requiring far more tools and more effort to get them properly adjusted. Yes, they require proper maintenance. Which means disassembly and repair at least annually and possibly far more frequently depending on the severity of service.

A cartridge bearing BB (including external BB) , on the other hand requires no service. You only replace them. But the frequency of replacement is usually measured in years. I've seen cartridge BB caked in dirt, grit, grass, cow crap and other indistinguishable animal waste material, soaked in water, salt encrusted and generally abuse which are still turning as smoothly as the day they came out of the factory box.

As for new generation XT and XTR, I have it. It's not flimsy or delicate. It's not going to melt in the rain. It's just a tough and rugged as old XT and XTR which have served me quite well for years and years. Given the amount of equipment I've used and abused in the past, I'm a pretty good judge of durability.

GeoKrpan

I don't think it really matters what type of BB you take to a third world country as long as you are willing to do what it takes if you have a problem. That might mean dumping your crank and BB and replacing them with what's available. Not really a big deal as long as you have the means to pay for it. I still think, in the more remote locations, that lower tech has it's appeal. I would imagine shopping for bike parts in a third world country is like shopping at a 99 cent store, you get what they got, no regularly stocked items.

The ONLY BBs that have failed on me were cartridge bearing BBs. I don't recall a loose bearing BB ever failing like a cartridge bearing BB, poof, toast.

Replace or service, about the same amount of work, about the same interval, service being something I can do myself for the cost of a bit of grease. I own every type of BB, no one type dramatically rising above the rest from the perspective of the saddle.

There are other commenters here that haven't had your luck with cartridge bearing BBs. I just replaced one that was less than a year old and have had many fail over the years.

Sixty Fiver

This is a case where each system has it's pluses and minuses and one'e decision comes down to their particular riding needs.

My Expedition bike ran it's stock Kuwahara / Tange bottom bracket for over 30,000 km and was used in the nastiest conditions and serviced regularly... retired it because I changed my cranks and needed a different spindle and the old bottom bracket is still in fine shape.

The replacement was an NOS Shimano LX cup and cone which is ridiculously smooth and very well made.

Still use cup and cone bottom brackets on many of my bikes and they keep running smoothly day in and day out, year in and year out but they are a little more work to maintain.

Cartridge bottom brackets are often not as smooth but for an economical and trouble free set up there is nothing better... when anyone says a part lasts decades that is meaningless... if you don't use something it will last forever and mileage and the conditions under which you ride are a better gauge of how durable a part is.

External bottom brackets provide better bearing support and stiffer spindles... some are easily contaminated and get noisy but they are very easy to service.

If one was touring in the nether regions I would not go with an external bottom bracket and their matching cranks... a square taper bottom bracket and cranks can be serviiced / replaced almost anywhere and they can stand up to some serious use and abuse... a Shimano UN54 costs about 20.00 and will deliver many thousands of kim of trouble free service... I seem to kill them after 15 - 20 thousand kilometers.

GeoKrpan

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

What did we gain from cartridge bearing BBs? The latest external bearing ones are clearly lighter but the square taper and splined are not.
Are they better bottom brackets?
You said your NOS LX cup and cone BB is ridiculously smooth and that cartridge BBs are often not as smooth. Are you saying that cup and cone is better?
Ok, so you have to service a cup and cone BB. How often do you do that on your main ride? Is it materially more difficult than replacing a a cartridge bearing BB?
Your Kuwahara/Tange cup and cone BB is still in fine shape after 30,000km and you get 15-20k out of a UN54 cartridge bearing BB.
What would entice you to use a UN54 over your NOS LX other than the reason that cup and cone BBs are no longer widely available?

Bekologist

I would just get the new Deore crank with the trekking ring ratio 48-36-26, swap the 26 out for a 24, and call it good. steel rings on 2 or all 3 out of the box.

the newer higher end mountain cranks from shimano all use their new carbon/ally rings which are both expensive and goofy overkill for a touring bike IMO.

I've always like the sugino cranks but the new external BB stuff is much easier to install and take cranks off of bike. i think its a big step up. a rider on a global scaled trip could carry an extra BB for those cranks, they weigh less than a fart. or, overnighted in the mail for little cost as they are under a pound.

i've got frames that, once the threads were chased, allowed the BB cups to be installed by hand except for the final tightening. a rider could replace them on the side of the road with a rock, a belt, and a swiss army knife.

cyccommute 

To be clear, I didn't say that I've had bottom brackets last for decades. I said that I've never had one fail which is a big difference. I've used cup and cone BB extensively before the advent of cartridge bearing BB. Some were sealed but many were not. I've had more of them fail than I can count due to pitting of both the spindle and the cups from infiltration of contaminants. The contaminants were usually grit and water from mountain biking.

That infiltration is the major failing of the cup and cone BB. If you ride off-road, you can't avoid throwing dirt and grit at your bottom bracket. If you want to preserve the cup and cone BB, you should tear it apart and rebuild it after every off-road trip or else you end up with grit in the bearings and that's never good. Cartridge BB are far better sealed and require zero maintenance. In other words you run them until they don't work anymore and the replace them. For me, that replacement interval has always been so long that I replace them with upgraded equipment before they wear out.

We gain time. Maintaining a cup and cone BB is a time consuming and rather complicated procedure. The maintenance interval makes the task even more onerous. A UN54 BB like Sixty Fiver uses is cheap. He may only get 20,000 km (12,000 miles) out of one but that's 12,000 fiddle free miles for $12 to $20 probably in really crappy conditions. His cup and cone BB may get 30,000 km (18,000 miles) but in order to get that kind of service life out of his cup and cone BB, he's going to have to service it on a very regular basis. The number of times is dependent on how crappy the conditions that he rides in. If he rides in nice conditions, he might get away with 3 or 4 rebuilds. Throw in lots of winter slush, salt and grit or ride it hard off-road and he could double or triple that service interval.

And let's look at the service that's involved. Remove the cranks, remove the lock ring, remove the NDS cup, remove the spindle, perhaps remove the DS cup (not all that easy to do if it's on there properly), clean out the old grease, install new bearing (you should do this every time you take the bearings apart because you don't know what the grit may have done to the bearings), reinstall the fix cup, reinstall the spindle, reinstall the adjustable cup, adjust the load on the bearings, lock the NDS cup in place with the lock ring, perhaps readjust the NDS cup because the bearing load isn't right, install the cranks.

Compare that to a cartridge bearing install which is basically 4 steps. Remove the crank, remove the BB, install the new BB, install the cranks. Easy peasy. External bearings are even easier because you only have one crank arm to tighten.

I used cup and cone BB from the late 70s to the early 90s and replaced innumerable spindles and slightly fewer cups. I rebuilt my bottom brackets on such a regular basis that it seemed like I was doing it weekly but was still replacing spindles. I haven't had a single cartridge BB (which I never service) fail since I switched. By any measure the reason that I use cartridge BB seems crystal clear. I'd rather be riding then fiddling with my bottom bracket.


What I've been saying all along Make your life easier. The less tools required to fix something, the better.

mrbubbles

Cup and cone BB blows hard. Sealed cartridge bearings, or external bbs, are the way the go.

hybridbkrdr

Do any of you think going 42-32-22 is too easy? I mean I know it sounds like a funny question. But, on my department store bicycle, the freewheel only goes down to 14T. I haven't completed my Nashbar touring frame build. But, I have an 8 speed cassette that goes down to 11T. Using a gearing calculator, I saw I could still have a top gear that would be as hard as my 48T to 14T with 42T to 11T. I'm still debating a max of 42T, 44T, 46T or 48T or even 52T.

cyccommute 

Even a 42/11 runs out of gears pretty quickly. How much do you want to coast and how fast are you brave enough to go? Me? 44/11 is too low (too much coasting). 53/11 makes for a saddle disappearing act It's fun but in a very bad way

HardyWeinberg

I am curious about the sugino external bearing compact double:

https://bikehugger.com/post/view/sugino-ox801d

fietsbob

a solid forged square taper crank and Phil Wood BB will be fine..

I built up my one off touring frame , and used the BB components Burley/ATP fit
for the rear BB on their tandems at a time , same bearing is used in autos
oversize, large balls , internal , and the BB shell is sealed by the bearings
a zirk filled the space between them with abundant grease.

KDC1956

Amazon.com has them all the time.

CCrew

+1. The $89 one Jenson sells comes with the BB to boot. I've got three of them on bikes, with no issues/. The whole "his is creaking and mine isn't" thing is malarkey.

MassiveD

If you are still looking for XD, a good choice. I would go to either Rivendell, or Spicer. Spicer used to carry all the crank arm sets, and rings, so you could build whatever. Don't see that now, but you could ask. He also used to sell the XD 500, which has the steel rings.

https://spicercycles.com/product-list...81-m1099-qc37/

https://www.rivbike.com/products/show/sugino-xd2/12-190