Maybe you should address the manufacturer of your Ceramic BB. Take a Token ..

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who installed it? install seems to be very important on bbright, ie if shop just presses it in normally, it's going to suck

I now install my own, I have a hawk and it spun like your second one. not in currently as I just removed it today to install the cups of a wheels manufacturing in which I will insert some hawk bearings, but that wont be until next weekend at the earliest so I cant post

when I had shop installing them I could not even get 2 revolutions out of them like that everything was grindy

I went and checked my road one and it is not spinning great but then again, I really need to replace the bearings as it has been on the sweat soaked trainer for 4 months and that really effs up bearings. heard a couple of pops tonight which is another give away(from last winter)

can you share you process of installing the bearings properly - i must say even with my LBS its hit and miss - i still find I need to replace bearings once per year

IME you cannot press in with any force applied to any part of the bearings and shops seem to want to press in with the tool that contacts the bearings and end result for me is crap. also pressing in one side at a time instead of shop method of both at same time seems to help.

I am shooting crap here now so you get what you pay for........I just know what is working for me

and ceramic bearings are not needed

well one good thing is that at least dont have the problem of any creaking but the crank doesn't spin as easily as on my gxp equipped roadie

well, bbright does suck(yes, jens, I miss the old BB styles), but you can make it work

The problem you are having is one of the many issues with PF30 style bottom brackets. AFAIK here is nothing special about the bbright standard, being PF30 + 11mm wider, that makes it worse.

I am going out on a limb and going to say it is an installation error. I have had 4 Cervelo's with BBRight, never had any issues at all, other than when I installed it improperly, which was only once.

Not sure what BB you are using, but I had previously used the ROTOR BB and for the last 3 bikes have been using the CeramicSpeed BB's, with no issues.

Once you figure out that the installation sucks, rather than bashing Cervelo, you can change the subject line to "My mechanic / I suck at installing BBRight".....................

Go to 26secs into this video, that is how GOOD a Cervelo & CeramicSpeed BB spin...

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I installed a ~$16 Ultegra Hollowtech II BB on my road frame using a $13 tool I bought at Performance. I made it good and tight, no torque wrench needed. ~20k miles later it still works fine and it's never creaked. Meanwhile, many (many) people in my group on a Trek/Colnago/Cannondale/Cervelo/BMC/Giant with a variety of PF standards have had issues, many of them multiple times in a single season. The presence of a threaded BB has since become the first feature I look for when considering a bike.

Here's (a rather entertaining) podcast on this topic:
https://cyclingtips.com/2016/10/cyclingtips-podcast-episode-15-on-creaky-press-fit-bottom-brackets-and-the-promise-of-t47/

And out of my 5 bikes the only BB's that have been replaced in 4 years is a threaded one.
And that failure was a indication of bearing price and quality not the system.
SRAM GXP, fine, Shimano road, Fine, Shimano MTB, fine, square taper threaded, fine, Cheap Tiagra threaded, one proper wet ride and it was screwed.
I have never had a single problem with press fit bearings if I installed them myself from new, on either my personal bikes or in a shop situation.
The single biggest problem is pressing them both in at the same time promoting rocking that distorts the shell.
Second is not using a proper press adaptor and just pressing with a flat face that can apply force other than to the bearing outer casing.

Every single pressfit problem BB I have seen you can see the telltale angled marks in the shell of improper installation.
Or a frame washer was used when an axle washer should have been used and left only half the shell to support the bearing.

There is nothing wrong with pressfit, just hamfisted mechanics.

It might be true that if a press fit BB is properly manufactured and properly installed it can be reliable. Still, if a monkey like me can install a threaded BB in a few minutes using cheap tools and have it work properly for several years, surely that's a major selling point for threaded? Also, many manufacturers clearly have issues in building BB shells to the tolerances required by PF standards. All of this hassle and there is no upside to the consumer with press fit.

just because it should be said again, this is not a problem with Cervelo's BBright (which really is only a designation for a wider BB using a 30mm spindle, same as BB386 EVO). This is a problem with press fit bearings. I had a wheels manufacturing BB installed on my S3 and it was great.

Again, this is not a Cervelo problem, this is a press fit bearings issue.

BBright is the same as PF30 with an extra 11mm added to the NDS.

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You can blame the installation and the 3 different bike mechanics involved with my bike. And all the other hundreds, or thousands of people who have posted about problems with the BBright/PF. Or you can realize the problem is a badly flawed design philosophy.

Insuring that two sets of bearings,~7 cm apart, are lined up absolutely perfectly within 10ths of a millimeter is a very high precision task, that should be the responsibility of the manufacturer. Cervelo has pushed that responsibility and the quality control of it onto the consumer.

With the old threaded BBs, the two sides absolutely had to line up perfectly, or the cartridge wouldn't screw in. And the manufacturer couldn't sell the bike. With BBright, they don't need to line up. And from what the mechanics tell me, they often don't (you may have just been lucky with your bikes) But that's up to the consumer to discover...... later. The bike will work, but it will creak and the BB bearings will wear out repeatedly.

The only people I've talked to who have had BBs last more than a year had to install something like this:

http://www.bbinfinite.com/products/bbright-30mm?variant=9864593283


Why? Because it's essentially like installing your own threaded BB shell. Which is what the manufacturer should have done in the first place.

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Hi Jens,

Sorry to hear you've had to replace your BB so early. Installing PF30 BB's definitely requires more attention to detail than older threaded style BB's and one of the better installation procedures I have found is this one from Kogel.

Also, on Rotor cranks it is important not to over tighten the adjustment ring on the non drive side. Back out the adjustment ring, lightly tap the crank from the drive side to seat the crank fully on DS then turn the adjustment ring until it just touches the dust seal to eliminate play. Avoid trying to "snug" it up which just creates drag.

Cheers,

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Jakub

pretty sure the bb's can be lined up from the manufacture since they come out of a mold

and saying 3 mechanics have issues does not really say anything about the frame, just the mechanics. I've seen countless smooth spinning bbright bb's. I've also seen crap ones. difference....the installer

I totally agree...I went the WMF route and have had no issues. I have CK on my Evo Hi-Mod and have 20,000 miles on it (between 2 bikes) with no problems. I use the grease injector, which is probably why things are still working well...

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as shown in your link, the correct type of drift is essential and most shops go with one too small that does crush the bearings into the race. when they do, you get a vid a little worse than what jens showed.

Unfortunately you are right. A lot of shops use the Park Tool headset press and when using that press for BB's you need to remove the stepped bushings so you only press by the cup, not the bearings.

The best option is the correct drifts as you mentioned, I happen to really like the Kogel ones.

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Jakub

Thanks for the link, it's always good to know about best practices for the future #edit: to get faster ..

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If you think that screw type is the answer, just ask how many power /ultra torque problems there are out there when the BB has not been faced before installation.
Threads can easily be cut out of line and we have all seen them and dealt with them.
That is why there is a whole line of BB's made to fit into misaligned threads by having one side with no threads that just interference fits.
The faces of the BB becomes just as critical to BB as the frame mold for pressfit.
Hard to face a carbon BB.
The threaded Shimano cartridges had terrible life compared to loose ball bearing types.
That is nothing to do with types, just the quality of the bearings.

The pattern I see is that some mechanics/ shops have never ending problems with BB's, some don't.
Says more about the mechanics than the equipment to me.

Also it's laughable to think because a crank "spins more" under no load then it's a "better" or "more efficient" bottom bracket. Don't fall for those Ceramic Speed "spin the pulley" marketing pieces at your LBS. Whether it spins "poorly" or "well" when spun by hand has nothing to do with how efficient the system performs under load.


Edit: This was intended as a response to Jens

Can you back this up with science?


I'm not saying you're wrong. I just want to understand it.


When you say it has "nothing to do with how efficient the system performs under load" -- how can you be sure. Absolutely nothing?

Again, not saying you're wrong but I'd like to understand it better and see what proof there is.

friction facts addresses this if you buy and read the reports. ie seal friction is not zero

for instance, the unloaded friction(seals) of a DA 9000 BB is more than double the total hawk BB(seals and loading)

My BB issue was from a showroom new bike. So Cervelo failed to installed the bottom bracket correctly and/or failed to ensure that the frame or bottom bracket was in spec.

Many (Most?) issues with PF30 are with new bikes which shows that the industry itself has problems controlling the installation and manufacture. If the industry can't get it right, how do you expect bike shop mechanics to get it right? It also clearly indicates there is a fundamental design issues with the PF30 regarding quality and reliability.