got a second hand set of dura ace cranks, tried to fit them on an octlink BB i had lying around; no go.

do dura ace need a special Dura ace bb, or are road and MRB octalinks different? the teeth on the on ei have are too wide to fit in corresponding notches on the crank

Crikey, is it 2002 again!? There’s Octalink V1 (road plus XTR), and Octalink V2 (other MTB groupsets).

Sounds like you’ve got a V2 BB.

The Dura Ace BBs were adjustable, and a bit of a faff, but lasted approximately 1 million years. I imagine you’ll be limited in what you can find these days!

: )
lovely job, thanks.
me and my lack of googling prowess..

You can still buy Dura-Ace octalink bottom brackets. Assuming they are double cranks and you have a British threaded 68mm frame then you will need BB7700B09 which you can find on google shopping for a variety of prices.

I’ve spotted you can still buy 105 versions too, which surprised me. BB5500B09 is a bit more wallet friendly.

yep, found them. 29 euros for a BB5500, that’ll do it.