Have a Cervelo R5 Ultegra Di2 bike on which I need to replace the crankset from Ultegra to a Rotor 3D plus.
My bike mechanic told me that to perform this swap a special Cervelo tool is required to remove the bike’s BB.
Have already asked Cervelo support but asking here in the meantime just in case someone knows the answer.
Do you know which “special tools” are required to perform this crankset replacement?
The Rotor 3D plus crankset should be compatible with this bike’s BB? or do I need to buy an adapter or additional BB?
It’s not going to work as your (wife’s) bike is currently setup. Ultegra is a 24mm spindle while a Rotor 3D+ is a 30mm spindle. Your mechanic is right in that a new Bottom Bracket is required to fit the Rotor 3D+ as the current one in there is for 24mm spindles.
If you wanted true plug and play then get a Rotor 3D24 (or original Rotor 3D) which is the exact same fitment as an Ultegra crankset. I can’t speak as to if a special BB removal tool is required for Cervelo as I don’t own one or dealt with one so just don’t know if your mechanic is correct or not.
No adapter will work to make a bottom bracket accept a bigger than originally designed spindle. If your bike has shims to reduce the diameter to fit the Ultegra crankset then if that is the case you can have those removed and they most likely will be the correct 30mm diameter you’d require. But again, I don’t know what is on your specific bike being talked about.
I have a 2018 R5, and had to replace the 24 mm BB (for the Ultegra crank) with a GXP crank so I could use my Quarq.
I believe all we used was a standard 48.5 mm x 16 notch BB wrench. Pretty much every shop should have one. The existing BB I believe is made by wheels manufacturing (link), and each side screws into each other in the middle. So all we did we loosen the drive side about 75% of the way (still threaded 25%)…then used a rubber mallet to pound the drive side which in turn pushed the non drive side out of the BB shell. Then we unscrewed the drive side out the remaining 25% and now both sides were removed. Of course, this action could ruin the existing 24 mm BB (but I didn’t care), so maybe that’s why your LBS says you need a special tool. The may have the intention of fully extracting the non drive side using the 48.5x16 wrench, then use a special tool to push out the non drive side without pounding on the bearings.
As for removing the old BB, you should ask the mechanic what’s currently on it. If what’s currently on the it is the PF30 with Shimano 24mm adapter cups, then you don’t need a new BB, you just need to knock the adapter cups out. Any shop with a BB tool could do that. If what you have is a Rotor one like this: https://glorycycles.com/rotor-bbright-to-shimano-24mm-spindle-bottom-bracket/, then again, the shop should be able to deal with it using a normal BB removal tool.
