Cycling UK Forum

The bottom bracket on my tourer is begining to feel a little 'loose'. It's a Shimano UN52 and I've done around 13000 miles on it. Does this seem like a reasonable life span?

As I am planning to buy a new chainset soon anway is there any advise on good, not too expensive bottom brackets? I was thinking of a Stronglight to go with the stronglight chainset I have my eye on. Is the aluminimum JP400 long lasting or is it best to go for the steel version? Do Stronglight need a different tool to Shimano?

Cheers

I have found the Stronglight JP400 to be both long lasting and smooth, the only difference between the aluminium and steel versions is the cups that screw into the frame - I was told by Spa to use the steel one in a steel frame and the aluminium one in an aluminium frame to prevent siezing.
The fitting tool is the same as Shimano.

I guess the chainset your looking at is the Impact (a good choice IMO) which I think is the only one to take the Japanese standard BB. I used the JP400 BB and thought the bearings felt notchy and it didn't last that long. Why not stick with Shimano? I think 13000 is a good mileage for a £10 BB.

13000 is not unreasonable for a bb, I doubt unless you only ride in extremely dry conditions I doubt you'll find many BB that do more. I have just had a UN52 run to 14k it was used mainly for commuting.