Impassioned defense?
I wasn’t trying to open a new debate on BBs all over again, I just wanted to explain why we use Spanish on our frames. Russ on his SPRFLS blog said I was making and impassioned defense….if you read it again you’ll see that it’s not exactly impassioned “This is just my common sense look at the bottom brackets and why I think that the Spanish BB is the best choice for our frames.” I had no idea that people had such strong feelings about bottom brackets. In all of the years that we have run the Spanish on our frames I haven’t heard any complaints about the bearings blowing up. Not from the team guys and not from customers so I was sure that the bearings were holding up so I was comfortable saying that performance wouldn’t be sacrificed. I agree that 100g isn’t a lot of weight but 100 grams here and there adds up (hollow stem bolts save about 2g per bolt). In the comments we’ve heard from both side of this but one poster on the SPRFLS site summed up my thoughts really well.
Mr B said:
“Most people seem to be saying that mids are better because the extra strength is worth the extra weight.
If this is the case then why does everyone run stems with massive holes milled into them? Surely by then the weight saved isn’t worth the strength lost?
The reason people run stems with the holes is because they are strong enough for the job in hand, so we then need to ask ourselves what strength do we need from a bottom bracket.
Isn’t it possible that a spanish bearing is strong enough and that mid are overkill?
Has anyone actually had problems with disintigrating spanish bearings?”
I’m going to look into the claims of failing bearings and see where that leads us. I’m not trying to convert anyone from Mid or tell people that the BB they have is inferior, I just wanted to answer the question of why I’ve chosen the Spanish BB’s for our frames.
Hey Darcy,
I’ve got a spanish bb and never had any problems with it.
But I run a 19mm spindle – but a 22mm / spanish combo might cause problems?
If a mid bb is overkill, then what is a 22mm spindle?
I don’t know if you guys do 22mm spindles or what, I’m just saying…
so darcy, what frame is that? is this really about bb’s? or is this an elaborate reason to leak the new line of frames?
Its the new Gary Young im assuming because if you leave your cursor over the picture it displays “young_black_ii907835″
ive never had a spanish bb blow up and thats with 2 years of bb grinds under my belt.
darcy, please never change to mid or i might change my sponsor… jk.
spanish bearings are made with extremely lackluster precision. every spanish bb shell i’ve encountered(dozens) has been machined too large, letting the bearing flop around which promotes wear on the already delicate bearing. sure the bearings go into the frame easy, but the last thing a seated bearing should be compared to is a hotdog in a hallway.
as for the ‘impassioned defense’ notation, you titled the original post with curses and exclamation points. if that doesn’t show passion, what does in the english language?
mid is the proper standard, get with the program. no more division.
Doesn’t the extra length on all the tubes required to reach the smaller bottom bracket cancel out the weight savings?
why does any of this matter. they both work. people are entitled to there opinions. i ran a spanish for a long time, now i run a mid.. not for any other reason than my frame needed mid. i dont notice a difference and ive never blown a bb. how often do you even hear about bbs blowing up?
204, well said. You said it all there guy. Manitoba schools are better than BC. They don’t have any Mandarin immersion programs-yet. Before all you pantywaists get yer shit in a not, listen to what he is saying. Simply looking at it from another perspective, if you do that, you won’t find my comments offensive, again if you do, you are not paying attention. Mad respect to Darcy.
By the way, when is your new shit gonna drop. The season has begun and done. I couldn’t wait and ordered something else along with others.
Is anybody will complain at macneil cause they kill spannish bearing?? Most of people don’t care about the BB… and for being into this market.. size of bearing isn’t the main point of strengh… the quality of it is the shit!!
One of my best friend use to ride a macneil frame whiton1 With the plastic cup broke up and the bearing too.
I ride mid and seriously I don’t care at all!
Yo the MAD Animal will kill that frame….seriously!!!!!!!!!!
Who cares about the Spanish BB…. Lets have a Mexican BBQ! Cervezas and Piniatas!
una cerveza por favor
all bbs do the same thing, run whatever doesnt matter
Well said. I’m the one at fault for posting the link to your previous article in the comments at SPRFLS. When I saw the post say “spanish bb’s are the shit” I was hoping for some sort of strong argument with the differences in strength or something to that effect, but the fact that the whole post was about weight and looks, it was a sad sight to my eyes upon reading. Not a mention of any strength difference, etc. Which I also think, there probably is very little. I personally have never had problems with any BB size, and in fact run a spanish myself now. I simply posted it over there because I find it stupid that we can’t streamline the entire bmx community to a standard size, thus by focusing on that, we’d be buying a lot more of one type of bearing, and therefore put greater pressure on the manuf. to make a stronger/lighter/faster/better product if all the bmx co’s deemed it worthy. I think that would help drive the cost down a little too, basically by the whole bmx community “buying in bulk.”
just wanted to clear that up, I mean no ill will to you, your company, or any BB size. cheers
and also, I missed the tiny part of “doesn’t sacrifice performance.” my bad.
So we can see the Whitton 3’s now???
Its like a matter of preference.. like TT lengths, BB heights, CS lengths… etc. There are some people out there that have had probs with euro/spanish bb theres less people thst have had probs with mid bb. I too think the spindle size 22mm vs 19mm makes a difference as well as how you install your bb and the qualty of bearings you use.
Enough is enough is there new stuff?
DUDE GNARLY…this is actually Chad Degroot.
……..
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SOON new CHRIS DUNCAN interview on DECOBMX.com
Killed 3 Spanish BBs. 2 x 22mm, 1 x 19mm. Haven’t had any problems with my mid BB yet…
Hey Darcy, I had one bearing fail on the first production run of Spanish bearings when the BB first hit the market. Basically the balls dislodged from the cage due to an axial load. Anyways I never blew one since then…… Time to get back to calculus.
I never rode spanish. i know ive nvr had trouble with mid ever and since there are so many different options out there it would be nice to come to some sort of conclusion on bb’z. its silly to have so many variations unless you truly need the extra bearing size.
its true though that a spanish bb with a 22 spindle could give you problems given the smaller ball bearings.
you should blow the shit out of the water and have a huge poll or testing on the two…
I never rode spanish. i know ive nvr had trouble with mid ever and since there are so many different options out there it would be nice to come to some sort of conclusion on bb’z. its silly to have so many variations unless you truly need the extra bearing size.
its true though that a spanish bb with a 22 spindle could give you problems given the smaller ball bearings.
you should blow the shit out of the water and have a huge poll or testing on the two…
I don’t give a shiot any more
The above comment was me.
Considering how there conjoined cranks went, i wouldnt expect macneil to make good choices.
Get some big balls lol Mid’s got the bigest balls of them all! Survey Says? Mid BB!!
mid bb roling smother and slowler which is better for tailwhips etc
This second respond is apporoximately as retarded to the last inane post.
Tasty Penis learn how to type and spell with proper grammar before you attack my posts and others.
Duuuuurrrrr da second respond (Response?) is apporoximately (approximately?) as…
Shut up, take the meat out of your mouth, and go back to school.
i’ve got a bibi frame since december ‘07 and i’m using the f*king same bb and it feels as good as always…
smile
i think big butts looks hot in every woman!
but if you’re a big butt rider i guess ya’ll need a mid bb
I rode a spanish BB for a few years. the only problem I encountered was the dust cap coming off. They held up fine and ran smooth. If it holds up for Ruben, it really should hold up for anything.
“Tasty Penis learn how to type and spell with proper grammar before you attack my posts and others.
Duuuuurrrrr da second respond (Response?) is apporoximately (approximately?) as…
Shut up, take the meat out of your mouth, and go back to school.”
Eh, no.
It was intentional. Just to see if a no-life loser would hurt their vaginas so bad at the sight of some mispelled words, he would waste his time to write up a response, thinking this loser could change the world with his useless crusade, when in fact, he just made a fool of himself because of his misplaced sense of self-rightousness.
….and yes, I’m sucking a healthy dick, at the school computer lab as I’m typing, nom nom nom.
I am a hack and my (2nd hand) spanish BB has been holding up as well if not better than any American BB has been.
Now release the whitton 3 so I can replace my 2nd hand whitton 2
Darcy whathisface is as dumb as a pile of broken BB…
This is the future you Neolithic fucks:
http://www.bb30standard.com/tech_images/bb30standard.pdf
Hi,
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regards,
Anna :: maison de retraite