I know you get what you pay for usually.
Hope would be good but are there other specific bearing company’s who make high quality without the Hope name?

Is it worth ceramic or SS or just keep buying cheap ones and replace?

Sorry for all the questions.

Elliot

Sealing and design are the key part, having replaced one set of Hope ones since I got one of the early ones it works well enough for me on the standard SS ones.

I have Gusset EXT24s in a couple of bikes- they’re better sealed than Shimano and ime only slightly worse than Hope, but also they use a totally standard bearing so they’re cheap to service longterm. Only downside is the plastic tophats are quite easy to damage, and you can’t buy replacements but other’n that they’re great and cost about £20-25.

I’ve had many hard years out of a Chris King on various mountain bikes. Have also heard good things about uberbike ceramic bb but not used one myself

Ceramic bearings not really any benefit unless you’re pedalling at 20,000rpm – they’re optimised to work in clean, constant-load applications, hardly what you’d call a BB.

In terms of extending bearing life, repacking with a more tenacious, waterproof grease helps – most bike grease doesn’t cut it.

While Hope last much longer than Shimano (IME) I don’t suppose they work out any cheaper as they cost so much more to buy. That said, they’re pretty much fit and forget so worth the extra I reckon.

I might be going against the grain here, I use standard issue, cheap as chips, buy ’em anywhere Shimano HTII BBs I get more than a year out of them – they’re usually about £10.

As above

XT/Saint £15-20?

I only use hope now. I gave up on badly performing cheap ones like shimano and the constant creaks and seizing up. The hope are more expensive but one of mine is probably 8 years old another is around 5 years old and I have one that’s only a year old. They have all had zero maintenance and all are still running like the day I fitted them despite using them in all weather throughout the year.

They don’t seem to get much of a mention here but I use Enduro bearings throughout my bike. I have found the BB to be most excellent.

I bought their Enduro’s BB bearings for Shimano a few years ago and they were absolute crap, lasted just a handful of rides- sealed about as well as truvativ. But maybe the BBs they sell are different?

Aside- if you’re getting really short life out of XT you’re most likely overtightening, they have no tolerance for that, you can destroy a new BB in just a few rides that way. (one of the big strengths of Hope is that they’re much more tolerant of it- mountain bikers tend to gorilla things so that can be a big deal)

Agree with Northwind on this. If overtorqued it reduces the Shimano BB’s lifespan considerably. I always use a cup style HTII tool that fits to a torque wrench set to the correct torque spec. Something like this:
http://www.wheelies.co.uk/p48676/Ice-Toolz-BB-Tool-for-External-Bearing-BB.aspx . It’s surprising how little torque is required compared to what you might be tempted to apply with one of the spanner style BB fitting tools.

Also make sure the BB shell faces are parallel. I always get them correctly faced on a new frame – it’s of the few jobs where I defer to the services if a bike shop.

Ceramic bearings not really any benefit unless you’re pedalling at 20,000rpm – they’re optimised to work in clean, constant-load applications, hardly what you’d call a BB.

+1.

Ceramic bearings are also not very good under shock-loading, so another reason not to use them on a mountain bike BB.

We use ceramic bearings at work, in hermetically sealed refrigeration compressors spinning at 30,000 rpm.
(they are used as ‘back up’ bearings – in case the magnetic bearings fail)

+1 for gusset bb

The most important thing to do before fitting any BB, be it a cheap one or a bling one, is to get it faced so the faces are parallel to each other. The quality of some frames leaves a lot to be desired and fitting a precision BB to it will just result in it failing quick. The bearings are designed to run with as little movement as possible so considering the forces put on cranks and spindles when pedalling it’s hardly surprising they fail so frequently. I still think the “old” Square Taper BB’s to be the best compared to HT2 hobbies. You basically did the same thing with these as you did with Chris King headsets, you swapped them onto your new bike/frame as they were bullet proof. I’m no fan of HT2 at all and I’ve had CK, Enduro, Shimano etc etc.