Can I put a Mountain bike Bottom Bracket into a road bike frame? Do I need the central tube, will I die if I leave it out? Are the threads long enough to prevent the world ending? I just don’t know the answer. Anyone know for sure?

You’ll need the shorter road centre tube, and a pair of 1mm spacers.

I thought the bearing shells were different widths?

Can’t compare as I’ve load of MTB but no road versions. I’d like to know if i can chuck an MTB version in rather than a brand new Road only version.

Hope’s cups are identical,if you check their tech section it’ll show you the differences are the centre tube(shorter), and the spacers (2x1mm instead of 1 or 3x 2.5mm).

So I can drop the centre tube from the unit and just space the cups accordingly?

Yes exactly that. I just stuck in an xt bottom bracket on my croix de fer. Used a 2mm spacer on the drive side which improves the chain line in my most common gears (big ring, small / high gear).

Yep, doing just this with a Shimano bb on one of my road bikes and its not killed me yet……but it’s not a Hope, and I haven’t checked anything since I fitted it, as it worked…..so there could be some slow lurking death in there just waiting to get me.

You won’t need spacers; road english threaded BB shells are all 68mm wide.

You’ll need a new central tube, but you can use it without one.

You won’t need spacers; road english threaded BB shells are all 68mm wide.

You will if it’s a Hope BB 🙂

^this 😀

The tube acts as an extra seal as well as a spacer. I ran my road bike without one for a while with no problems (it was a dh 83 version I had)

In the end I ordered a new one and a set of extra outer plastic seals from my lbs.

If you run it without the central tube then watch out for water ingress down the seat tube cut-out or remove the seat tube periodically to allow condensation to escape, especially if you don’t have a hole drilled in the bottom bract to let water/moisture out as this will kill any BB no matter how good the bearings/outer seals are.