Well, I tore up my bottom bracket a few times over the last few years. smooshed the cups on rocks and sooo it was time for new one.
So looking around (for a green one really
) I started checking out all the options available in types these days. As you all probably know ceramic bearings are all the rave so I decided to look into all the different makes. Chris Kings are nice but they are only Stainless steel, then there is the Sram/truvativ upgrades that were pretty pricy. Hope was up there also. I eventually stopped by my favorite bearing site, (redid the K2's suspension system with Enduro bearings and was/am super happy with their products) and saw they have 2 varieties of ceramic bearings that they use in their bottom brackets as well as just bearing upgrade packs where you use your old shell cups and save a good chunk of $$$$. Their site has a lot of information about bearings in general and a damn good over view of the different varieties they carry. And they are made in the USA!! Big plus there. Price is good, smaller, kinda personal company,... they get my purchase
Now my cups were toast so I went all out for the complete new bottom bracket, (unfortunately they only come in red for the english version and silver for the Italian threaded, no green
)
(image linked from Enduro's site)
First Impressions...Shipping was super fast and I had them in my hands in 2 days SAAAWEEEETTTT!!!
Taking these things out of the box and you can instantly tell that attention to detail and quality is a high priority on this product. From the beautiful red anodized to the lettering etched in right down to the more important things like the bearings and seals as well as the center tube. All look to be down right perfect. If you download and read the directions it say the outer seals are packaged separate and need to be greased. Mine came all pre-applied and greased up with from what I can tell is a top quality lube. SO it's basically pull the old ones from the bike, slip on the spacers and torque the Enduro's down. I did take some extra time to clean the threading in the frame, dry fit the two cups to make sure there was no binding, which by the way both stock Shimano and Sram cups did have binding issues and it was the cups themselves both times with rough threading. The Enduro cups spun in by hand right down to full contact with the frame. Soooo greased up the threads and a tad on the center tube seals and torqued everything down to 37 Foot LBS (35-40 recommended) whole thing went flawless. slipped the cranks on, and took them for a quick spin around the yard.....
Now, I never thought that you'd "really" be able to notice the difference, but I was wrong. Now maybe it's because mine were toasted, cups bent and such but OH MY GOD did the bike pedal smooth.
I took the bike out for it's first real ride on them today and I can honestly say that adding these to the bike was a major improvement. I was climbing hills in much tougher ring combinations than I ever had before and these things applied the power to the chain much smoother than I would ever have thought was possible.
Now I only have one real ride on them, but at this point, I'd easily give these a
5 out of 5 rating, About the only thing that could make them better at this point is a selection of colors.
We'll report back after a good beating over the next few months
Go take a look yourself...
http://www.enduroforkseals.com