Pace RC-80 BB, a grumble :-(

I bought one of these BBs about 6 months ago (but only fitted it 4 months ago). As we’ve had a couple of wet rides, I decided to regrease the bearings with the tool I’d also bought. Popped the cranks off, and to my disappointment the non-drive bearing was seized, the drive side felt a bit notchy too.

Emailed Pace to ask them if they wanted me to send it back there, but no reply. Wiggle replaced it without quibble, but the replacement sat on my desk has a stiff and notchy drive side bearing out of the box, so it’s going back for a refund.

Anyone else had any issues with them? But disappointed TBH, as I’d been singing it’s praises (prematurely!), and the grease tool approach seems a good idea to me.

🙁

Hmmm was extremely tempted when CRC had the for £40, but couldn’t locate a review anywhere & though you not think they could get stuff like this wrong, Pace’s reputation on here isn’t the greatest.
Seem like I might have saved myself a load of hassle – still like the idea of a cheaper BB with a grease port though..

I’ve had one of these sat in my CRC “wish list” for months now. Maybe I won’t bother.

I’ll sell you a cheap one 😕

What’s most annoying is that I “bought in” to the system, so actually bought 2 of the BBs (bought the 2nd when they were “cheap”). I intended to fit it to my road bike when (if) the Raceface BB died, but I’ve fitted to the MTB now, we’ll see how long that lasts.

Update (if anyone’s interested)!

After more wet rides, I decided to regrease the bearings in the new one last night and lo and behold, it’s f*cked. Drive side bearing immovable, tried to grease it and a lot of water came out (there was water behind the lip seal too when I took it off), but it didn’t help. I didn’t check before fitting so I’m guessing it was stiff from the outset, but if it wasn’t then it’s lasted 2 rides. 2 f*cking rides. So that’s 3 BBs in 6 months and I won’t be buying another.

Garbage 🙁

1st off my view of pace are not good due to after market service I received concerning a 405XCAM I used to own

When I was looking for a new BB 6 months back I did look at the Pace, probally due to the grease tool – but then I spotted what looked like Enduro bearings fitted in the shells – which I don’t rate either

so it was a Hope BB for me…and it’s been fine; only used in the summer so it’s still got some proper abuse to look forward to yet!!

Don’t like the remove cranks to grease method (CK the same?) if someone came up with a production version of 5spots greaseport model I’d buy in to that, ride, clean bike if neccessary (maybe), lube chain, grease BB, easy. Or someone could just produce some BBs that aren’t crap in wet weather

when they make a frame which cracks in the same place on all of them and they refuse to see a warranty issue blaming it on you and not a design fault then you have no hope with a warranty claim on a bottom bracket, me i have 2 pairs of their forks have had problems and have had to pay each time to get it sorted best advice is to aviod unless you have no other choice but then someone is going to come on later and say they are the best company they have delt with but not many i think 🙁 good looking products poor build quality and warranty back up

Or someone could just produce some BBs that aren’t crap in wet weather

Square taper?

Thinking about it, it seems to be an obviously flawed way of doing things. Basically, the tool pushes grease through the bearings from the back and out the front. I can only assume that to facilitate this there’s no seal on the back of the bearing or the grease wouldn’t be able to get in. Daft?

It’s Pace, what were you expecting…?

Just in case anyone was remotely interested, I think it’s the cups that are out of tolerance. I decided to dissect the last BB and so I removed the bearings from the cups. As suspected, there’s no rear bearing seal to allow the grease to pass through and out. More interestingly though, as soon as I took the bearings out of the cups, they span freely. I put some brand new Enduro bearings in the cups, and as soon as they were in there they didn’t spin freely at all, as though the bearing was being compressed. I’d imagine there’s some need for a bit of interference to keep the bearing in the cup, but it seems to me as though there’s far too much in this case. Utter sh*te 🙁

Just seen this, linked from this thread.

I’ve also got a Pace BB and the bearings in mine are very smooth running, out of the box and after three very wet rides. I re-greased it after the second ride, just for fun really, no water or dirt came out, just grease.

The design is such that a ‘rear’ bearing seal isn’t necessary. The 4 O-rings on the centre tube and the lip seals on the outside bearing covers seals the inside of the BB, via the axle. It’s a sound design, as long as all of the seals are greased and are all sealing properly.

The tolerance issue on the ID of the cups is bad. A definite QA issue that they should sort out. Seems I got one with the right size cups.

Time will tell for mine, fingers crossed!

wwaswas – Member
Or someone could just produce some BBs that aren’t crap in wet weather

Square taper?

He’s right, they do:

They only last about 10 years between bearing changes. Give Cliff a call, he’s a very nice man.

If it ain’t broke don’t go redesigning the thing unecessarily![/b] 🙄

Terrible cusutomer support and terrible products. Purchased the RC40 XCAM when it was fist released. It failed countless times and was sent away, every time it was returned it would fail again after a few rides.

In the end I contacted Mr Carter to express my concerns at being a guinea pig, for a new to market fork that didn’t work !

The letter I got back said it all and on the back of it I managed to sell them and have not nor will not ever deal with them again.

Had friends with Pace products that have also failed.

Such a shame as they look great but are made of cheese.

You pays your money you takes your choice.

+1 for Royce BBs – indestructable.

+1 for Pace products – for display purposes only.

I’m truly amazed that people still buy Pace products. They’ve not produced anything decent or reliable for years and they’re most certainly still trading on their reputation from their halcyon days.

My RC40s looked great when brand new…as sold to me by a certain Matt formerly of Chelmer Cycles. The serial number of the forks was 0006, which made them one of the very first sets out there.

To be absolutely fair to Matt, they ticked all the boxes with travel adjust, 130mm travel and light weight all for £439 – the price (then) of a set of Fox Vanilla RLCs. However, my RC40s went back to Pace twice to have the travel adjustment replaced under warranty (apparently, they returned with a redesigned travel adjust assembly), but they still crept down all the time. It was a great shame, the damping was absolutely brilliant but ultimately I had enough and replaced them with a set of Pike U-Turn Airs, which are still going strong over five years later, which says it all really.

I haven’t bought anything from Pace since and have no plans to do so.

Nah, pace make/made great products but their quality control was awful. The good stuff was great, reliable and durable but if you got a bad set they were awful. Fwiw my rc40 continues to be faultless so I obviously got a good set. My mate who got exactly the same model had no end of trouble. Same story 15years ago with rc36 when they came out. Mine were never serviced and worked perfectly for years (still are on a mate’s bike actually) whereas my housemate at the te bought a set and they’d seize at the slightest bit of moisture.