Stop DESTROYING Your Bottom Bracket And Do This…

Do you have any bottom-bracket maintenance tips? 🛠

3 of my bikes have the old Shimano single-piece cartridge bottom bracket (square taper) that have done tens of thousands of miles over the past 20 years and are still as smooth as ever. Probably heavier than current BBs but definitely more durable.

Thank you for being honest about the ceramic nonsense.

Hambini makes BB gauges to check for the aperture of bottom bracket holes. They're a cheap and easy way to diagnose a frame manufacturing defect. He also recommends NTN bearings, which are the best you can get before getting in stupidly diminishing return territory. Pretty cool to see frame manufacturing tolerances being mentioned on GCN :)

Okay, as long time rider who has worked on many bikes, the answer for many people is quite simple. Any water getting in the the frame will always go to lowest spot and ruin things. Back in the day we drilled a small hole in the bottom of the bracket at the lowest point to let the water run back out if the frame did not already have one. Water loves to go from the seat post clamp slot into the frame. It doesn't matter what material the frame is made of, a small hole will not weaken the frame. This also helps with corrosion on all the other parts of the bottom bracket, not just the bearings. Cinelli actually patented a ventilated bottom bracket using negative air pressure to keep it dry. Cheers from Florida.

I had 2 canyons grail and neuron . Bottom bracket worned out after 1500km.😢 little to fast imo. No pressure hose used. Luckally 30euro fix and i improved bike mech skills 😅

And just like that, with a single (albeit long) sentence Alex has destroyed both the dirt cheap and the crazy expensive segments of the after-market BB industry.

I have an older bike that doesn't get ridden much anymore. Back in the day I was riding 7-8,000 mi/yr, so it must have over 50k mi on it. An original Phill Wood sealed BB. Still smooth, quiet, and tight. I have never pressure washed the bike, hose only.

Alex (for us novices), it might have been nice to have actually known what was wrong with that BB? Sounded clean and seemed to rotate just fine with no obvious lateral slip/knock

Showing my age here but many of the old Campag Record BBs from the mid 80s with the tapered square shape are still going strong. The axle actually had a corkscrew detail that pushed water away from the bearings. Also the bearing seals probably added some drag but they actually worked. Call me a conspiracy theorist but I do think poor materials are a deliberate ploy so that we replace components more frequently. I had to replace the SRAM BB on my gravel bike every six months and the frame is fine tolerance and alignment wise. Now running Shimano GRX chainset without issue for almost 18 months 😮

I make sure to apply plenty of grease to the part of the seat post that sits inside the frame, and wipe off excess grease on the outside. This helps prevent water from getting inside and travelling down to the BB where it causes issues. I'm also careful not to spray degreaser or soapy water around the BB, even low pressure, never mind jet wash! Same goes for headset and rear hub.

Interesting, useful video. It's good to look at and understand individual parts of your bike. Thanks.

If it's not sealed bearing, you can actually regrease it fairly easy which is the case for the Canyon bike featured on this video. Just take crankset out, remove the bearing cover and regrease from time to time.

My bottom bracket on my Specialized Roubaix Comp needed to be repacked after 3000 miles. It is important to keep maintenance up to date.

Cheers for the preload advice - just installed new 105 cranks to a new bb too tightly I think 👍

Just using stock Dura-Ace and Campag BB's on my bikes, I haven't had any issues.. I'd like a Hambini replacement if I ever need one, but with 20k plus km on each BB, neither has had issues.

The structure is very perfect in terms of technique and art.

I miss the old cup-and-cone bottom brackets with the solid spindle that weighed about a kilo (my memory may be faulty). Clean and relube periodically was fairly trivial. Even new bearing balls if you wanted to splurge. But I must say the "new" stuff is quite durable for being zero maintenance. My hollowtech lasted about 10 years before giving up. I still keep my cone wrenches for sentimental value.

Never had a problem with tolerence running the classic English threaded BB.

Awesome video,the same applies to you headset and bearings though I've noticed mild rain hasn't affected my headset at all.💯👌🏻✌🏻