Was just about to buy a fatty aeffect crankset, which uses a proper 24mm spindle so I can use normal BBs. I’m kind of a BB luddite tbh. But just spotted a turbine on sale at a good price, without BB.

So, questions questions. First of all, do Raceface BBs still suck balls? I had an older crank of theirs, it was perfectly nice but the BB was awful. So are they longer lived now, and are they at all servicable?

And, linked question, can I use anything else? I know there’s threaded 30mm BBs out there, Hope and Aerozine at least do some and that’s good enough, if I need a raceface alternative… But I don’t know if they’re compatible with the cinch cranks, I figure they ought to be but 30mm standards baffle me…

PLan B is just to go and get some new aeffects but I feel a little bit like I’m just shying away from the unknown… And half the fun of buying and building the fatty is the unknown

I can’t answer all your questions completely, but I currently have an E13 30mm axle crankset setup in my 73mm BSA frame with a RaceFace Cinch bottom bracket, and it all works without any bodging etc. The bottom bracket itself seems perfectly fine and definitely serviceable, as it uses common size bearings which you can replace, which I did with some cheap ceramics. But if you don’t get on with the RaceFace BB you should be able to swap out for a different brand, the only thing to be wary of is that the BBs can vary slightly in width between makes, and thus you need to make sure that your crank is long enough to make it through (oo-er). All in all I’d say go with the Turbines, I’ve heard good things about them and I reckon you’ll definitely be able to get something to work even if you end up not liking the RaceFace BB.

The RF threaded and PF30 BB’s use standard 6806 bearings, which are replaceable I’m told. It’s just the BB92 BB that uses a proprietary bearing, due to its size.

Just bought some RF Next SL cranks for my Evil, they’re bonkers light, but BB shell is a BB92. Have decided I’m going with the Hope version as I’ve had such good experience with Hope BB’s with 24mm cranks so far. With any luck will have it all fitted tomorrow, ready for a test ride later this weekend.

I have next sl cranks in a bsa frame and I installed a hope bb. Raceface crank instructions (I actually RTFM) tell you the require width and tolerance of the bb and with 1 spacer it came up a little short. I think the bb cups are a touch narrower and the cinch bolt leaves the threads before adding tension. I just added another spacer to the nds, checked with calipers and it sat in the required tolerance so gave it a go. No problems so far.

Be warned; 30mm BBs seem to all have proprietary tools to add to the cost of testing.

I have those cranks on my Aeris NW. Lovely, stiff light cranks but the BB lasted 6 mostly dry months and – because no one else* has bought into the 30mm axle thing, you have to give RF another £35 to fix the problem! You also need a special tool to fit/remove BB as the shimano one isn’t wide enough.

I have the Aeffects on my Dune. Used a Saint BB as needed to space out the DS to get a good chainline and was concerned about amount of thread left in the shell to screw into. Given the choice again, I’d buy them again. As soon as the BB goes again on the Aeris, I’m going back to 24mm cranks and cheap BBs.

* except hope whose definitely fit RF Cinch. But their ceramic BB is silly cash.

Things you need to know:

The Aeffect is the lighter crank
The Aeffect will wear better from heel rub
The Aeffect uses normal BBs

The turbine looks cooler.
You can use Hope BBs if you want
Enduro do a BB for it, as do RWC, so you could eventually get one of those and you’re done.

All my latest builds I’ve used Turbine cinch cranksets (running 1×11) so you can read into that what you will. Easy to fit, seems well made, good single rings. I’d like to say stiff but if I’m honest I’m not a good enough rider to really notice… Oldest one has been on about a year and a half and no bearing issues. Riding wise they’ve probably been used in similar conditions to you (I’m nearby the Tweed valley) and plenty of multi day trips up north. Generally, I’m well impressed.

benpinnick – Member

The Aeffect is the lighter crank

You sure about that? Looking at the RF site, Turbine with BB and 32T cinch ring seems to be 1g heavier than Aeffect with BB but no ring

Aeffect 32t no bb is lighter than turbine. Not sure on bb weights.

Aeffect SL – 643
Turbine Cinch – 651

Turbine 30 bb – 94
Team XC 24 bb – 99

Thats Aeffect SL – which has the slightly lighter hardware set up that standard Aeffect. Allowing for BB and that they would be almost identical, the Aeffect SL is slightly lighter even when allowing for BB too. Were talking <10g though!

I’ve just gone through this and ended up with an aeffect with a 30th as I already had a new bb92 for it and it seemed the cheapest way into the cinch system.

@ Northwind
The Race Face 30mm BB seems to be ok ish, one of the first people that i saw try out the turbine cranks was Kris Henry of 44 Bikes, he did a write up on them. I think after about 9 months of riding it got a little gritty so he changed it out for something else. I hadn’t realized they had generic replaceable bearings.

The hope BSA 30 BB fits just fine with the Race Face cranks but you need to get the hope BB tool for installation, other BB 30 tools may work but i couldn’t find anything to show cross compatibility with other manufacturers and the hope one was only a tenner.

@ mboy
I went for a hope BB for much the same reasons as you. I’d be very interested to hear how you get on with the BB92 bottom bracket as i may look to swap the cinch cranks into my other bike which has a BB92.

For clarity that I should also point out that Aeffect cranks aren’t cinch cranks… at least not in the way you’d think. They have the DM mount off the cinch cranksets (which is nice) but the EXi axle off the older style cranks – not the Cinch axle, which I would say is the defining characteristic of cinch cranks – being the part that cinches up n all.

Aeffect definitely the winner then, cheers for all that Ben. Raceface’s own claimed weights seem to be pretty wrong and there’s a lack of sicklines-style gifs-on-scales for these.

Just need to choose a chainring now 😉

Go oval you know you wanna try it it’s my next buy for my aeffect cranks.

If I plump for Aeffect cranks do I just buy a chainring and crack on? Are there any other bits needed? (Adaptors\specific tools?)

I have an aefect say at the shop waiting for the chainring to come in for my fatty! Going to order another set for
My full sus!

The crank comes with locking ring so all you need is the chainring of choice and a bb to fit. Should fit standard external 24mm axle bb. Which is the reason I went for it over the turbine or hope cranks. It’s starts getting pricey when you buy crank, Bb and chainring!

Cool that’ll do me ta. Absolute Black oval and XT BB – assume Wiggle at £81 is the best crank only deal?

fd3chris – Member

Go oval you know you wanna try it it’s my next buy for my aeffect cranks.

Ae, definitely going oval- got a Works one on it just now, I wasn’t that taken with oval on the HT (can’t really tell the difference) but on the fatbike it takes away that boingy feeling when pedalling seated in a low gear. Very nice. Think it’ll be an absoluteblack but not sure what size, 28 oe 30 maybe…

(usually I’d go 34 but frankly, keeping the fatbike going at that speed is bloody hard work so I might just not bother)

Next SL’s now fitted to my bike, along with the relevant Hope/Enduro stainless BB bearings, and christened in horrific wind and rain at Degla…

Fitting was very straightforward, though as someone else above pointed out, there’s almost certainly a spacer missing as when you crank up the drive side arm onto the axle and then wind the preload collar all the way on, there’s still side to side play. I rummaged around my spares and found a 2.5mm wide BB30 spacer, put that on the non drive side, backed the preload collar off again, tightened up the drive side arm, then only had to wind about a turn onto the preload collar to stop the side to side play.

So far, so smooth. The Hope/Enduro custom sized bearings fitted perfectly and just press in with a BB30 press tool and used a bit of locking compound on the outside of the bearing shell as recommended. All good.

The thing that staggered me was just how much lighter the Next SL’s are than the XX1 cranks and direct mount ring they’ve replaced! Both carbon, both with a direct mount 30T ring, there was something like 150g weight difference for whole setup! Downsides? The XX1 crank has a narrower Q factor if that matters, the Next SL arms come pre-taped mind for the serial heel rubbers. Will report back in a few months once I’ve done some more riding!

Anyway… Bought an Aeffect crankset for my HT too, standard 68/73 shell width, 170mm arms, 32T ring. Have decided for now I’m going to keep the last gen 104BCD 4 arm Turbine’s on it as I prefer the way they look, and I don’t need to go smaller than a 30T ring. They’re £129.95 RRP including the 32T ring, if anybody wants them will do for £100 posted, or £75 without the chainring. Email in profile if anybody wants them.