2015 Velo Awards: A unifying BB standard? Someday?
Will we ever be able to applaud the bike industry for creating a truly standard bottom bracket standard? We hope so, just not yet.
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This is the award we can’t wait to give out … someday.
With the introduction of yet another bottom bracket standard at the end of 2015, the BB morass looked to be getting even worse.
Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but that new standard, T47, has the potential to clear things up — if the industry players can unite behind it. T47 offers a threaded solution to PF30, a standard that has never lived up to its potential, due to the incredibly tight tolerances, difficult installation, and propensity for creaking. Thread-in BBs are easier and more reliable, and T47 works with all crank spindle sizes currently on the market. It combines something we’ve always known works (threads) with what engineers tell us is beneficial (big bearings). That sounds like a win-win.
Of course, customers are vulnerable to innovation fatigue, and BBs have been the biggest source of that in the bike industry. So we expect frame manufacturers to move slowly on T47, if at all. But whether its T47 or something else, we can’t wait for the one standard to rule them all.