Got a specialized carve pro and after no more than 400 mile I’ve felt a bit of play on my last outing. Took it to my local specialized shop Birmingham and the fitter told me I need a new one.
Go on then. So when he took it out water poured onto the floor 8O. He told me not to was bike with hose or jet wash . Watering can only .
Anybody else suffered the same?
I must admit I do like a nice clean bike.

BB or cassette?

If the frame is full of water you’re clearly using too much water on it, so hardly surprising the relatively poorly sealed bearings have failed…

Wash my bike like it was a car. Thought bikes had drain holes for a reason but not enough of them it seems.

Cassette!

jacob46 – Member
Wash my bike like it was a car.

I predict many servicing and labour bills and threads like this in your future.

Surely it’s the same as riding in wet conditions! Oh well watering can from now on then.

I hose mine, wouldn’t powerwash it as a rule though as long as you don’t go mad with the high power that’d probably be fine too.

TBF though if the frame’s full of water there’s another problem there, it ought to drain. You might want to try taking the seatpost out from time to time and turning it upside down…

There’s probably not a little hole in the BB shell. If there is, then it’s probably crudded up.
Also look how you wash it. If you do use a hose, then don’t aim directly at bearings and the seat-tube clamp area and saddle clamp as those spots might give a direct route for water into the seat tube.

I’ve always tended to remove the seat post on my bikes in the past and they’re stored hanging up so any water will drain away.

With the advent of dropper posts where you have to start trimming zip ties to get the post out it’s happened less and less and I do worry at times.

I think drilling some hole sin the BB shell would help but one’s a Ti frame and the other a bit bling so I’m reluctant to do that.

Bottom bracket = in between the cranks
Cassette = on the back wheel

I just use a normal garden hose with a soaker attachment, main pressure is more than adaquate for your needs just add some elbow grease, though do avoid using it on/near your discs 😉

Crank bearings!
Mechanic called it a cassette when putting new one in. Thought it was the new up to date name…

Nope, he was an idiot.

Surely it’s the same as riding in wet conditions!

Do you ride though constant high pressure water?

see ya point tomhoward. watering can from now on.

If you use a hose make sure its not too powerful and just remove the seat post and turn the bike upside down for a minute to let the water out.

No problem using a garden hose, pressure washers can force past the bearing seals though.

Change the BB yourself in future, it is an easy job, modern BB’s are basically disposable items. Although 400 miles is clearly low, I see no problem with changing them once or twice a year.

The GF’s BB died after a year and when getting it cheanged, the mechanic told us the frame was full of mud 😯 even had photos of the pile of mud inside the BB shell.

Turn out the old seat post (FSA afterburner, fitted for 11 of those 12 months) was hollow all through with no closed top. Mud being flung under the saddle was able to fall directly in to the frame 👿 WTF

Check that this isn’t the case with yours.

if it’s a SRAM PF30 bottom bracket thats fitted I’m afraid thats pretty normal. I killed three in the same distance. Each time water was inside the shell and I was getting blamed for jet washing/hosing the bike even though it had never been near one and had just been ridden in the wet. Fitted a works component one and not had any problems since.

Don’t bother measuring use in miles, I could do many more here in summer and never need to wash a bike 🙂

Change the BB yourself in future, it is an easy job, modern BB’s are basically disposable items. Although 400 miles is clearly low, I see no problem with changing them once or twice a year.

Yep really disposable, the missus had a shimano one last 6 months, replaced with a nice hope which is going well. Up to 5 years on one of them so far having coped with heaps of British weather. The GXP one in here new bike will be replaced with another hope when it dies and then we can stop worrying about them.

If water poured out of the frame, the only way any BB will last is if it’s got neoprene ballbearings in. Spending more will just be a more expensive failure. The problem is not the parts.

When you next need a new chainset, go for a square taper Middleburn set and get a square taper BB, they seem to last forever.

Press fit or external BB’s are shit.

external BB’s are shit.

No they are not, they are an improvement over square taper/isis in just about every aspect apart from longevity, which for such an easily replaceable and cheap part isn’t the problem many make it out to be.

Pretty sure that Coolhandluke will have a good answer for how to get a square taper BB into a Pressfit frame – the adapters aren’t great either.

On the main subject clearly the issue is that the frame was full of water so identifying the drain holes and storing the bike with the drain holes at the lowest point will result in a frame empty of water.