Looking at 6805 BB bearings, Hope SS ones are around £15 each.
Known brand ones, like FAG or SKF are a bit cheaper, around £12.
There’s plenty of No Name ones on ebay for around £1 each.

Has anyone tried the cheap ones ?
If we take a year as being a good lifespan for a quality BB bearing, the cheap ones would only need to last a month to make them cost effective, not taking in to account the inconvenience of having to fit them.
How long do they last ?

Can’t recommend Simply Bearings enough, loads of choice, very fast delivery too.

@ a quid each, they must be worth a try?

@ a quid each, they must be worth a try?
I bought some cheap Ebay bearings for a Maverick front hub & they’ve been fine for nearly 12 months.

If you can fit yourself, try the cheapos.

Id pre grease them, but some think this is the work of the devil.

Don’t forget that the hope bottom bracket bearings are a non standard size (as are the shimano ones as well).

I used some cheapies on a BB – as above pop em open and grease before fitting. Lasted me fine. IMO the cheapies would be no good for high speed or high load applications but at 90rpm and whatever load my tiny legs can produce there’s no need for that, so that just leaves seals and lubrication.

Thanks Onzadog, I hadn’t spotted that.
If you use a standard 37x25x7 6805 bearing, you need the plastic spacer as well.
The 37x24x7 size seems to be unique to bicycle BBs, which does narrow the choice a lot.
Looks like it’s either Hope at £15 or Enduro at £12.50.

I’m running both hope and enduro (enduro in shimano shells) and both have lasted longer than xt and xtr shimano.

Think these might fit.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261320474903?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

I was gonna buy these when my hope ones give up.

I had an old superstar BB that i could knock out and replace the bearings on and used to use cheapy e bay ones, and to be fair i could get through a whole summer on one set of them, but come winter they were literaly lasting one ride, two at the most unless you took the cranks off, removed the BB and re-greased, and lets be honest who can be arsed to do that for a set of bearings that cost £3?

Sorry for slight hijack; how would you go about getting the old bearings out of a shimano ht2 bb? I have a couple of old ones that need replacing.

HT 2 service

It can be very tough with some Shimanos, hard to get a tool to the inside to knock the bearings out- you might almost think they’re designed that way since the lip that causes this doesn’t seem to do anything else…

Gusset’s EXT24 is a great option if you want to replace bearings- not too expensive in the first place, longer lived than Shimano (not quite as good as Hope but still good), uses standard bearings and very easy to swap (can do it in the frame in fact) Just don’t break the tophats.