Why do bottom brackets hate me?

[jrenaut]

I blew up another one this morning. That’s two in two months (different bikes). Both happened when I was starting up on a green light and heard a loud crunch.

This one I took to the Bike Rack – I was only a few blocks away and didn’t want to deal with hauling the longtail to TwoWheels’ house to replace another BB.

Topic

[TwoWheelsDC]

@hozn 161924 wrote:

Good read, thanks for posting.

But what is this new bike ?!?

GT Grade X. This will be my “nice” gravel bike. My Fuji gravel bike will be converted into an all weather commuter. The bus route to my office is being eliminated, so I won’t have much choice but to ride on rainy days and I wanted to shift my stable around to include a bike with full fenders and a rack (which hurts my soul, but oh well).

The GT has SRAM Rival1 HRD with thru axle in the front. The crank is whatever level is below Rival, but I’m going to swap that out with the Rival1 crank on my Fuji anyway since that’s the crank my Stages fits. I’ll also move my Easton tubeless setup wheelset over to the GT, which will be easy since they’re convertible from QR to thru axle (would’ve liked to have thru axles on both ends, but it wasn’t a requirement for me).

What I was originally planning was to move my current Rival1 stuff over to some cheap bike and upgrade the Fuji to HRD, but the GT was just such a good deal that it makes more sense to convert the Fuji to an all-weather bike and leave all the brakes/shifters where they’re at. So with the full Rival1 HRD drivetrain and the Easton tubeless setup, it should be a pretty killer bike for pretty damn cheap.

[hozn]

@TwoWheelsDC 161929 wrote:

GT Grade X. This will be my “nice” gravel bike. My Fuji gravel bike will be converted into an all weather commuter. The bus route to my office is being eliminated, so I won’t have much choice but to ride on rainy days and I wanted to shift my stable around to include a bike with full fenders and a rack (which hurts my soul, but oh well).

The GT has SRAM Rival1 HRD with thru axle in the front. The crank is whatever level is below Rival, but I’m going to swap that out with the Rival1 crank on my Fuji anyway since that’s the crank my Stages fits. I’ll also move my Easton tubeless setup wheelset over to the GT, which will be easy since they’re convertible from QR to thru axle (would’ve liked to have thru axles on both ends, but it wasn’t a requirement for me).

What I was originally planning was to move my current Rival1 stuff over to some cheap bike and upgrade the Fuji to HRD, but the GT was just such a good deal that it makes more sense to convert the Fuji to an all-weather bike and leave all the brakes/shifters where they’re at. So with the full Rival1 HRD drivetrain and the Easton tubeless setup, it should be a pretty killer bike for pretty damn cheap.

Nice! That looks great. I am sure you’ll enjoy the HRD. And thru axle in the rear is nice but really not something you’ll notice riding it (unlike the front). (The thing I like most about thru axle in the rear is that you can put your wheel in while bike is hanging in the stand without having to let the bike down to ensure it is seated in dropouts correctly — but that is pretty small.)

You could always just do full fenders and not sell your soul for the rack . Full fenders are definitely a bit nicer/drier than the Urban Velo, though I’ll only use them in winter when cycling becomes more of a routine than a sport.

[Crickey7]

The guys at my LBS cleaned and repacked my bottom bracket (and mildly chided me for not wiping the bike down more often) and this morning, for the first time in two months, I rode without making horrible creaking sounds. Yay!

[Author]

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