i am at the point of needing to do my bearings, have greased them like mad and they are noisy but will last for a while until i find a replacement setup, the point i would make is surely it would make more sense to get a bb that is easy to look after, i believe the expensive ones are and so would make it easier for you personally, the other option is to buy this and then maybe charge to fit bearings? I know BETD currently offer to fit if you buy from them but they haven't answered my request on RF ones, and so there might be a market to get some back? but even then, i dunno if i would want to replace bearings for £20 + a labour charge when a hope bb is £60 and might last twice as long...
i dunno if that answers your question....

Well I seem to be replacing BBs on my two bikes about once a year, which means about GBP100 every 12 months. The bearings on their own, even fancy ones, would cost only about GBP20 a pair, resulting in a saving of GBP60 a year. Seems to make sense to me, but I would like to know that one or other of these tools can do the job well, cos if the bearings are not put in nice and square and solid (for want of a better word) then they will gash up pretty quickly and I'll have a creaky BB in no time.

I've got the enduro tool. It's a work of art and really easy to use. While I've worked on other peoples bottom brackets with it, the irony is, my XT and XTR bottom brackets have been fine since I bought it!

Shirley the difficulty is getting bearings out rather than in?

The bearings come out quite easily, judging by this video clip

[url= http://www.ixizconcept.com/ixizycle/vendor/prodemo/ixizycle_ixizBBet.htm ]IXiZ tool[/url]

but this tool isn't for sale yet. I'm surprised that BBB or Park or one of the bigger tool firms don't make them - and that makes me wonder whether there are hidden problems with popping out old BB bearings and replacing them.

Hey Onzadog. If you don't have much use for it, what about selling it to me?

Don't BETD put Enduro bearings in your old XT bottom bracket for £20??

Seems a waste of money buying the tools when you can get them replaced with quality bearings for little money.

http://www.mountainbikecomponents.co.uk/items.asp?CategoryID=237&Name=Hollowtech+II+bearing+upgrade

Just read the full thread properly - please ignore, seems its already been covered 😉

I wouldn't mind paying 20 quid, but it's too far away from me, and, anyway, I like to do this stuff myself. But thanks for the suggestion.