When I was reading up what to get when we were building up our Surly Long Haul Truckers I came across the Hollowtech II’s. I did only find good reviews about them and everyone I spoke to highly recommend these bottom brackets.
I have now cycle just a tad over 5,700 miles on my LHT, mostly commuting, touring to come. But yesterday I started to feel some play when pedalling. At first I was thinking that this was the Crank Brothers pedals which were playing up again. There was rather a lot of play in them, that I swapped my pedals over when I got home, thinking that that would be it of today’s fettling.
Though today I decided that it was about time to give the Surly a good scrub behind the ears and a check over, since I got rather dirty when swapping pedals yesterday. While scrubbing I found out that the Hollowtech II was rocking and that the left hand side, or is it leg?, the bearings were very loose, or rather gone. I could move the whole thing around very easily and there was much black grime, muck, dirt which felt like there were metal bits in it.
I’m sure that I fitted the bottom bracket correctly as for once I did read the manual and had help from my friend @ the LBS. And after looking at this great video from Hope Technology on how to fit a hollowtech bottom bracket, it just confirmed my feelings.
Now I wonder if it is a bad model, a fluke or the Hollowtech II ain’t built for my kinda riding.
It lasted longer than my GXP did. Mind you, you do use your gears 😉
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