External bottom bracket – which is best

Hi as i have a few pounds to spend on my bike which bottom bracket is best. Smooth long lasting and ease of service. In peoples opinion.
Stainless or ceramic.
Hope – Wheels manufacturing – Chris King – Race face or an other?

Thanks Diz

i know others will disagree but a non-oem shimano XT HT2 has been the best BB ive had.

18 months in the peaks and still going strong. just the occasional wiping of the seals and some teflon lube.

my stainless hope BB lasted about 8 months before it was totall shagged.

Looking at either getting a Hope or a Chris King headset , looking forward to hearing what people are saying about either myself

I can tell you avoid Race Face like the plague !I'm currently using a Hope stainless early days yet though .

I don't find bottom brackets particularly exciting, so it's XT for me. Also they can be had for £24 or so.

If I was going for a pricey BB I would probably be interested in the CK one, as it has a stupidly long warranty for a BB if I remember correctly.

i've been running a deore external bb for over a year now with no play or creaks which is good for the price i think.

Hope Ceramic doing well in Scottish mud fest/ granite chipping slop.

Anybody any comments on Chris king bb's

Does anyone else do Truvativ compatible BBs other than Hope? The shims are about £9 extra, can they be used with other manufacturer's BBs?

i have a Hope BB on my commuter and a Chris King on my hardtail.

they are both relatively new and still in good condition. it will be interesting to see how they compare against each other even though they are getting different use – road salt compared to mud/grit.

i plan to get new grease injected into my CK every 3-4 months to hopefully keep it in good condition.

My Chris King has been working solidly for the last 6 months or so. Still super smooth and so easy to change the grease, plus it has the best colour range. You get a 5yr guarantee on the bearings, Hope only give 12 months i think? Shows the difference in quality.

Hope Stainless Steel here but not had it long enough to judge really.

You don't really get a 5 year guarantee on the bearings on CK.

Chris King Precision Components warrants its bicycle bottom brackets to be free from defects in materials or workmanship for a period of 5 years from the original date of purchase. Any Chris King product that is found by Chris King Precision Components to be defective in materials or workmanship will be
repaired or replaced at the sole discretion of Chris King Precision Components providing it is returned to the factory freight prepaid. This warranty does not cover damage or failure resulting from misuse, abuse, alteration, neglect, normal and reasonable wear and tear, crash or impact, failure to perform routine
maintenance as instructed, or use other than that for which the product was intended.

Acros – Ceramic. Best money I've spent on a BB (got two still going strong after 18months of 10/12/24hr racing in the Highlands of Scotland)

Anyone using the Philwood? Looks fantastic 8)

I've ran king hubs/headsets for 10yrs now with no problems and i'm tempted but not sure on the faff of regreasing.

after getting through external bb's at an alarming rate (1 every 3 or 4 months on average) I bought a chris king one back in april, its still early days perhaps but it only has to last a year for it to prove more cost effective than the cheap ones. Regreasing is a quick job with the specific tool and it never feels anything less than perfect. so, so far so good!

Definitely not wheels manufacturing. Ond of the guys I ride with got one recently. One ride and it locked solid…

agree with fallguy. easy to re-grease a king and mine runs sweet as, no matter what gets thrown at it. had it 7 months and re-greased it once. didn't need to, just wanted to try the re-greasing tool out. have run king headsets for about 12 years on various bikes. always been ace. current on is on its third frame and never regreased. still smooth as silk.

It takes a little longer but you can get grease into SHIMANO BB and they will last well, but with bearings at a fiver I am not too worried.

I ran some Campag external bearing cranks on my 1×9 and it took 10 mins and no specific tools to re grease them, wish they made an MTB triple like it.. Looked nice too.

😆

5 spot, I got the tools, I got spare BB to play with, got any more info on what the grease fitting is? Did you remove the inner seal off the bearing so grease goes in easy.

I had wondered about using a grease fitting on the BB shell blocking all the holes of the frame up and filling the BB shell with grease and leaving the plastic tube out but it would be a fair weight of grease.

+1 for hope or chris king. I use both and they have out lasted my shimano stuff by a long long way

2 C K 's here and after 6 months silky smooth.
Had an Acros before the kings and had to return it under warranty after 6 months.

clubber – Member
Definitely not wheels manufacturing. Ond of the guys I ride with got one recently. One ride and it locked solid…

Sh1t! I very nearly bought one of those with Wiggle's last voucher offer. They're the ones deigned to have changable bearings aren't they? Great idea I thought. Oh well. I'll stick with Shimano, they've always lasted well enough for me.

Hope stainless here running perfectly smooth after 8 months or so. Don't do anything special to it.

I can destroy Race Face BB bearings in two months.
The Hope ceramic was around three times the price, but it's lasted over three times as long already.

happysv – was it repaired FOC without question though?

J

I have ran Raceface external BB since they came out and like a lot of people I was sick of the bearings falling apart after 4-6 months. I went for the Enduro Bearing replacement kit from Betd:

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

This has been the bext £20 spent (though I did buy the tool too which was ca. £25-30), though I guess you could probably improvise.

1 and 1/2 year after and with occaisional crank removal and cleaning (5 min job) they still run super smooth with no play.

Thoroughly recommended!!

🙂

Btw the 'Do not disassemble' bollocks on the BB cups is, well, alot of bollocks!! 🙂

I tried to get at the bearings on my RF one and those plastic covers were impossible to get off without breaking them. Is there a knack/tool for it then?

hope are pretty dam good. dont touch raceface .

I find the best way to get the plastic spacers out is to put the cups in a bowl of hot water. It'll soften them up and they come out unscathed. They really are too brittle otherwise and just snap.

Got 2 Hope stainless and just got my second King today, 1 Hope did HTN,Sits and D2D last year + about another 1000ml, my bike developed a crack so replaced the bearings only to find a cracked frame,
The king has done about 1000mls also without touching it and is still silky smooth, If you get the King from GO AVT its about £80,(first choice), Hope stainless for about £50 from the UK.

I got this…
http://www.mountainbikerides.co.uk/fettling/hollowtech2bb.htm
Works like a dream if your careful and costs around £5 per year…

Race Face crap! Get Hope ceramic, I paid about 60 quid from Chain Reaction about a year ago. Still smooth despite nearly 2 winters.

a year later which one has won
i’m after buying either the hope ceramic or chris king

I was warned off the early CK BBs. Be interested to see how they’re lasting now.

Is the Hope ceramic really worth the pennies over the stainless version?

hopefully we will find out..