I am the proud owner of the ISIS version of the FSA compact cranks. Now I need a BB to hook up to them. I have never used anything but Shimano BBs before.
Any suggestions for a BB that will go on my training bike that will get lots of miles? I am not a weight weanie on this item.
I am assuiming I need 108 mm length for a road double crank configuration.
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FSA makes a couple that will work and they are very nice quality. Another you may want to try is Phil Wood he may have his bottom brackets ready to ship. Either one of those will be excellent for your application. I also think American Classic is working on one or has one.
Grant Salter
I just ordered one of the American Classic BB. I will get one of the first deliveries. Obviously there is no track record on this part. I am simply trusting American Classic, which has an excellent reputation.
I know there have been problems with some of the ISIS BBs, including FSA. I have no idea if these have been worked out. I guess the ISIS design puts a big load on the bearings, and there have been a lot of product failures.
I hadn’t checked into Phil Wood. I should have thought of that.
Isn’t there anyone out there to tell me “Yeah, I have put 10,000 miles on XYZ BB and it works great for me and all of my buddies.” I guess nearly everyone uses Shimano or Campy.
It sounds like the ISIS BB design is a bit of a challenge. I just checked the Chris King website, and it says they’re working on their design but it’s not ready yet.
Art, Somehow my reply got lost. sorry. I bought an FSA carbon crank last summer and got their ISIS ti bottom bracket. Very easy installation, even came with some ti prep. Only drawback was that I couldn’t use the self extracting bolts that came with the bottom bracket. Had to use the larger ones that came with the crank. I’ve been very happy with it so far.
Neil
Every ISIS BB that I know of has had problems in terms of long-term reliability. ISIS spindles are larger diameter than the other standards on the market (even Octalink,) to the point that the standard pushes the limits of what is possible given standard BB dimensions. Put simply, ISIS spindles are so large that you have to use bearings that are too damn small for the application in order to fit them in the shell. This is the reason that the very very high end boutique parts makers are not making ISIS BBs (told to me, personally, by the R&D guys at several of these companies) for standard size BB shells.
ISIS BBs are getting better; when I worked at FSA, we had an incredibly high rate of return on all ISIS bbs, but they improved markedly, because they had to - 3 complete re-designs in the first year on the market.
As it stands now, ISIS BBs are much better than they were, but they aren’t life time parts. For high mileage riders, you will probably be lucky to get a year out of any of the designs currently on the market. As this is so, your best bet is to purchase a unit with a good warranty, like the various FSA models, and plan on sending it back for replacement when it wears out. It’s like a subscription plan.
I have ISIS BBs on three of my bikes, and all of them are shot. I went through four BBs this cross season, six if you count the ones on the (2) bikes right now. That’s a rate of about 1 a month, but that’s also in some pretty crappy conditions.
MH
Unfortunately, this all makes perfect sense. So tell me again why you and I bought ISIS cranks? My Shimano BBs seem t last forever.
My new compact road cranks are Octalink :0)
MH
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