Cannondale Aficionados / Owners

lol at the user error comments, bb30 sucks just admit it ;-)

#swearinginthechurch

£500, come and get it.

Not doubting this, but for £25 I could do BSA without creaks. BB30 may be better, but I'm not sure it's £475 better

When I first installed mine it was silent.

After 500km or so it started creaking.

I don't believe it's anything to do with the bearings needing replacing.

I believe it's because some dickhead decided that alloy bearings, in an alloy frame, with an alloy spindle, was a clever idea.

It requires better frame manufacturing processes, better wrenching and a small increase in the degree of user care than those commonly available. But then again it's fitted on high performance racing bikes - I believe the (flawed) assumption is that with the right manufacturing you'd hope that the wrenches involved and the users of the product would be able to step up.

BB30 itself is great - light, stiff, low Q factor. Even Tester approved.

It just doesn't recognise the reality of the pond in which it swims :)

We can't machine to the tolerances required for BB30, so were using PF30 - now we have T47 though, which will be in my new frame:

But that's simply because we don't have the sort of manufacturing facility that Cannondale does, so as I said BB30 is out of reach. It's still, from a technical standpoint, a great idea.

I will pay you £500 if you take my CAAD away and make it not creak or rattle, and stay that way for as long as all the other bikes I've ever built have not creaked and rattled, which is forever. If you honestly think you can make a BB30 stay un-creaky until the bearings fail, then you must be some kind of wizard or magician. It's complete pot luck, largely dictated by the experience that BB30 creaks. Full stop.

low Q factor

OT but I went from wheels manf 24mm convertor and 6800 cranks to Praxis M30 and their Turn Zyanate cranks .. how much of a diff in Q factor it'd have made? I kinda noticed it .. not that I care much.

"I will pay you £500 if you take my CAAD away and make it not creak or rattle, and stay that way for as long as all the other bikes I've ever built have not creaked and rattled, which is forever. If you honestly think you can make a BB30 stay un-creaky until the bearings fail, then you must be some kind of wizard or magician. It's complete pot luck, largely dictated by the experience that BB30 creaks. Full stop."

As Howard says, it's a standard designed for good/race bikes that will be maintained well.

I killed one BB30 bottom bracket in 86 miles - the Ride100 that was the wettest ride I've ever done.

Therefore of course you can kill it if you abuse it, but if it's been installed properly it won't suddenly "go wrong" through normal use.

I'm not currently wearing a pointy hat with a rabbit up my sleeve but I've never had a BB30/PF30 bottom bracket that I could not (ironically by changing a QR or a pedal) render totally silent with a bit of thoughtful maintenance.

fwiw, every time I've had bullshit from the BB area, it's been something other than my BB. Never serviced, never removed from new ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Full stop.

#endof

#dontreadthecomments

Agreed: removing my crankset and covering whatever surface may contact with grease, and then more grease, every time it starts creaking, actually immediately remediates the problem.

I just can't be arsed rebuilding my bottom bracket every 3 days.

Try pulling it all out and cleaning the whole area, with acetone, then put a very thin layer (a film) on the inner face of the BB shell, then insert the new bearings using a decent quality press that will keep the bearings precisely parallel to one another as they go in.

Make sure that they are snugged up against the circlips - this usually takes me a few gradually increasing tightenings to get correct, then install the bearing shields and the axle, spacers etc.

I suspect that you've contaminated the shell with dirt either during assembly or re-greasing.

Nobody cares

Qfactor thread>>>>>>>>

Dunno, but IIRC the Praxis crank doesn't have a true BB30 Q factor because it has BB386 length axle.

So not much, I think.

Whilst we're talking about dale creakiness...

I'm still getting noises from my headset area when climbing/torqing the bars. It sounds like it is coming from the conical spacer thing that sits on the steerer. The headset has been adjusted by a good mech several times but the creak always comes back.

Any suggestions on how to fix?

#slamdatstem

I had that with my old Boardman, swapping the stem, bars and fork resolved it.

never serviced bb30 in 4 years, never creaked, 10,000 miles ¯_(ツ)_/¯

152mm lol.

Same, BB30 perf on mine from original install.

Had a mavic front skewer that was the only creaking issue

grease and fibre grip the appropriate areas, my friend has a CAADX that hadn't seen any lubrication whilst building, everything was just dry.

Every time I check this thread, I think somebody might have actually posted up a rad Cannondale bike.

Alas no, we're still somewhere between the usual BB30 complaints, disc brake concerns, tyre/mudguard clearance and weight-weenie'ing.

I'll bite, y u no copper grease?

it's cause we own the fucking things rather than drooling over them. Hopefully this thread is enough to put prospective buyers off...