Now, I like a bit of bling as much as the next man, but is it really worth paying £80 for a Hope ceramic BB when I can get Ultegra for £20? It’s not going to last four times as long, surely? Do the Hope BBs need any kind of regular maintenance to keep them tip-top? I use this bike virtually every day, it gets filthy and yes I use the jet wash occasionally! I’m thinking probably best to go with Shimano and just replace yearly?

After wearing out a few shimano BB’s – always the drive side bearing – I switched to hope on both my mountain bikes.

Both BB’s are now on their second bike having lasted a good 5 years.

These are the stainless ones, I can’t comment on the ceramic version.

About twice a year I take the cranks off and clean any dirt off the seals, thats about all the maintenance required

mate of mine used a ceramic one for 3 years before selling the bike, new owner has used the bike (quite a lot, goes to work on it) for almost 3 years and its still on the original bearings.
having said that, ive been using the same shimano one for 2 years now, and although im really heavy/fairly strong its still fine, although i did make a point of making sure it wasnt overtightened at initial install.

IME, in the early days of Shimano HT2, a Hope would easily last 4x as long as Shimano bb’s. I have no recent experience of Shimano BB’s as my Hope stainless is still going strong, but I understand Shimano are better lasting than they were.

These day’s I’d just stick a Shimano one on and see how it lasts.

I use Shimano, but if I had one bike that was getting that sort of use I’d be tempted to go with something more servicable tbh… Hope maybe, more likely Gusset EXT24 (easily replaced bearings and fairly well sealed, not quite as durable as XT if left alone but easy to clean and grease and will last longer with a little TLC)

Some folks seem to be able to kill Shimano far faster than I can, not sure why, maybe overtorquing the bearings? Others find changing BBs to be an incredibly onerous task…

Fill your boots….