OK, apologies in advance for my lack of technical knowledge!

I currently have a carbon Felt road bike with a BB30 bottom bracket, which I want to change to run the new Shimano 11 speed groupset. What do I need to do? And what tools do I need? And experienced tips to get it right? How best to avoid any risk of damage to frame / bottom bracket etc?

Any advice / links to youtube or instructions etc much appreciated!

Ta 🙂

I’m using the Wheels Manufacturing adapters. a bit pricy at £30 but get the job done nicely. It’s as easy as remove old cranks with 8 or 10mm allen key, place adapters in BB30 bearings currently fitted and then slide new chainset onto bike.

Those adaptors were cheap on CRC or PX recently.

Ah, thank you! I wasn’t sure if I needed to remove the existing BB30 bearings in order to use an adapter. But … there is a slight “clack” noise coming from the bottom bracket at the moment – does that mean the bearings need removing / greasing, or replacing, before I put an adapter in? (Sorry if these seem like stupid questions!)

BB30 is not a great thing, in some ways. I have 2 bikes with them in and both have had replacement bearings pretty soon from new. But there bearings are cheap and if you are going to the level of stripping it down to fit the cranks , its only a bit more to replace the bearings anyway. FSA bearings , I have seen, seem to have hardly any grease in them, which cant help much.
I fitted a wheels kit to a friends bike recently, so he could use a Shimano chainset and we found that the crank didn’t go on the whole way, whatever we tried.

There seems to be 2 options:

– simple press-in adapter (current bearings stay in) http://www.wiggle.co.uk/wheels-manufacturing-bb30-to-24mm-crank-spindle-shims/

– a more expensive “BB30 to outboard bottom bracket” which seems to have integral bearings, which would imply that my current BB30 bearings would need to be removed. http://www.madison.co.uk/products/cycling/transmission-braking-components/bottom-brackets/bb30-to-outboard-bottom-bracket-shimano-compatible-red/

(Getting more confused …)

Correct Sue.

1st option retains the BB30 bearings – no point in replacing yours if there are no issues yet. New ones are £10-20 and pre-greasing them extends life greatly.

2nd option – unless it’s easy to replace the bearings I might avoid that.

FSA also do a shell which loctites in place of the bearings and allows you to use a threaded BB £20 odd.

linky for the fsa talked about above

let us know how it goes, cos there has been a lot of us with Q’s about this – and i am thinking of doing the same thing too.
wiggle fsa bb30 changer….

I have fitted the FSA adaptor to a road frame of mine and hasn’t creaked or moved and put a Hope bottom bracket on an Ultegra chainset. Nothing out of ordinary to report. I used a headset press and a couple of bits of steel plate to press it in and that’s it !

Cynic-al – the second option uses stainless bearings – more than likely better than the stock ones. It’s a self supporting unit which vastly reduces creaking, and the bearings are replaceable. Better solution than the step down reducers.

If you’re unlikely to change back to bb30 use the FSA sleeve, done loads at work and I’ve had one in a cannondale super6 for the last 4 years, totally silence and faff free, it can be removed but isn’t advised to be done
The other option is a praxis converter, I reckon the best option if you make want to go back to BB30, very easy to fit and remove, put one in a sworks Tarmac over a year ago, totally silent upto now. Had one in a roubaix, needed to be serviced once in 14 months to get rid of a minor squeak

great info

one quick Q

the bb30 fits flush,
the conversion ones give us outboard brackets either side

..so when you buy a crank do you have to buy one with a greater spindle width? (dumb Q here probably)
…and if these outboard brackets either side make the BB wider, than wouldnt the pedal gap width also be wider (yeah im sure another dumb Q too!)

that fsa one above seems to fit inside with no outboard gubbins….

The conversions correct the shell width to work with Hollowtech II crank axle diameter and width.

The FSA bonded sleeve allows the use of a threaded HTII BB which has cups which sit outside the shell.

Same width in each case.

Thanks all! I now know a lot more about bottom brackets … always keen to learn rather than just pass my bike over to someone else to sort out.

As the current BB30 bearings appear to be running OK, I’m going to try the wheels manufacturing adapter first as it looks like I can do it myself without special tools (just a large Allen key to remove cranks / chainrings). If that doesn’t work, I’ll opt for a permanent change to shimano, but will probably get my LBS to do that as I don’t think it would be worth me paying for specific tools.

Thanks for all the info and advice 🙂

A lot of BB30 bearing wear quickly, some blame cheap bearings but it normally down to the BB shell been a fraction to small!
Basically if the bearing feels smooth & OK outside of BB in you hand.
BUT when you put them into the frame they feel a notchy and not so smooth, (the interference fit it to tight, leading to rapid wear) If this is the case I would get the BB reamed.

http://wheelsmfg.com/bb-adapters

@sillyold man

ahhhhok gotcha
so the fsa sleeve still needs a htII BB install of the cups
the others with the outboard things dont, the things are actually the cups that a htII bb would give you

so the logical path is
BB30 frame + praxis/wheels/shimano PF or BB30 bottom bracket + BB30 cranks = DONE
or
BB30 frame + fsa sleeve + HTII BB + HTII cranks = DONE
or
BB30 frame + praxis/wheels manu BB outboard + HT II cranks = DONE
or
BB30 frame + BB/PF30 BB + praxis/wheels manu BB adapters + HT II cranks = DONE

is that right…?