GXP alternative

step83

after about 1200 miles another GXP has died, started clicking which I thought was the pedals, spare pedals on, clicks still there and now a grinding noise at about the 5 O'clock position on the drive side pedal. Had it apart its rusty and not moving freely.

Options
Another SRAM Team one
Hope with adaptors
Wheels MFG?

Any others? I did try an Uberbike one but the drive side bearing wondered out of its housing mid ride so thats me put of those.

paulbnix

I picked the Hope with adapters - expensive but worth it I'd say. 9000 miles now and still fine.

They are mainly dry miles but do include some wet winter and two floods.

The Hope has a much better external seal than HT2.

Alejandrosdog

I use the wheels ones , they’re very good but it’s not fit and forget in my experience, I’m a smidge over 4K miles on my good bike and starting to hear the odd creak and crack.

I’ve had the cranks off, the drive side isn’t perfect. Good job I’ll only need to knock out the bearing and replace. A simple job. I think the last time I had to replace was a little less distance. That distance seems the norm for me. Others may get more or less, it’s all a bit of a mystery.

david7m

Think I'm on my third, will get Hope when this one packs up.

joey54321

I've only had one, had it in for 5 years in my winter bike and it's still going strong, super smooth. Must be over 10k miles at least I would have thought. I must have got super lucky with mine.


My pressfit BB30 however...

graeme_s-2

joey54321 wrote:

I've only had one, had it in for 5 years in my winter bike and it's still going strong, super smooth. Must be over 10k miles at least I would have thought. I must have got super lucky with mine.

My friendly LBS mechanic reckoned the GXP bottom brackets suffered from really variable quality control. He'd had some that were rough and clicking straight out of the box and others that had run flawlessly for thousands of miles.

I've had 3 in my current bike. The first lasted 4.5k miles, but was clicking terribly at that point, the second clicked out of the box and was swapped for free after less than 300 miles and the 3rd one is currently on 4k miles and has just started clicking a bit.

step83

Poor QC seems about right, I'll get a wheels MFG one on order see how that behaves

Alejandrosdog

Graeme_S wrote:

joey54321 wrote:

I've only had one, had it in for 5 years in my winter bike and it's still going strong, super smooth. Must be over 10k miles at least I would have thought. I must have got super lucky with mine.

My friendly LBS mechanic reckoned the GXP bottom brackets suffered from really variable quality control. He'd had some that were rough and clicking straight out of the box and others that had run flawlessly for thousands of miles.

I've had 3 in my current bike. The first lasted 4.5k miles, but was clicking terribly at that point, the second clicked out of the box and was swapped for free after less than 300 miles and the 3rd one is currently on 4k miles and has just started clicking a bit.

ive come to accept that 4k miles is quite good for BB, i dont even expect that from wheel bearings. Though my Mavic wheels seem to run and run and the DuraAce hubs are seemingly immortal.

graeme_s-2

I bought a fixie from my LBS years ago (the owner had built it up himself and then decided to sell it rather than keep it - we were about the same size, so it was a good buy for me). The BB went in less than a year, which I was a bit unimpressed with. The next BB lasted thousands of miles (maybe 7k or 8k - I'm guestimating as I wasn't tracking mileage per bike then) including riding in crappy winter conditions. Eventually I noticed a bit of side-to-side movement on my cranks and put it into my LBS to have a new BB. I got a phone call the next day. The frame had cracked around the bottom bracket shell causing the movement (the crack was hidden by dirt). So that BB outlasted the frame.

pedropete

I've come to he opinion that SRAM bearings are rubbish, regardless of what they're fitted to. None of the ones I've had in BBs, jockey wheels or anything else have lasted as long as you'd reasonably expect them to, and that's with good care taken of the bike. I also had a Wheels Mfng threaded PF30 adapter with the Enduro angular contact bearings where the drive side only lasted six months, which was disappointing.

My current Hope 24mm with GXP adaptor is doing fine after 12 months and ~4,000, so that's positive. Plus, I can get compatible replacement stainless bearings locally for a fraction of the cost of branded options.

apriliarider

Cbear BB GXP 386 EVO for me - approx £100 and a touch over 13000 miles - no maintenance and still no issues