Wanting to upgrade my Poseidon Gravel bike, I placed a Race-Face 30mm BB combined with Easton cranks. After much toil and finally letting my LBS fiddle with it, the cranks still are not spinning free (without chain). Proper alignment, install, and torque on my own, then LBS removed internal plastic sleeve and spacers on cranks. It spins better after LBS, but still not full free. Curious if any other users of this combo has had similar outcome. LBS tells me I'm basically trying to use a Mt Bike BB/cranks in a road/gravel frame. So best to use road components on gravel bike? Thanks. Todd
Which Posiedon model do you have? The Redwood has a 73mm BB shell, the Dropbar X has a 68mm BB shell...
I believe the standard spindle that comes with the Easton cranks is 129mm and designed for a 68mm BB shell width.
If you have the Redwood, You might not have enough adjustment with the 129mm spindle to make it work. Assuming the shop installed it without any spacers and the preload adjustment collar backed all the way out, it might still be a tight fit causing lots of friction.
The Easton crankset uses the same spindle as the 30mm Race Face cranks, and they make various spindle lengths. If it has a 129mm spindle, swapping it out for a 134mm spindle will probably solve your problems...
Thank you for the advice - I'll ask at the shop next time. I thought I checked all the boxes when measuring/installing, but completely willing to swap the spindle rather than scrap the set-up entirely. It is the Dropbar X, so again, should be correct. Thanks again - T
The annoying thing about BSA bottom brackets is that the width of the external cups is not actually standardized. I've got a BSA bike with a "BSA30" bottom bracket with external cups that adapts BSA to 30mm spindles. My crankset is 386Evo. However the spindle length varies quite a lot on 386Evo cranks. I believe the Race face cranks are quite wide and so their BB cups are also large. The FSA MegaEvo BB has very thin cups and actually uses non standard 6.5mm wide bearings to accomplish this. The easiest thing would be probably to match the crank and BB brands. Otherwise you can use this chart someone cobbled together to determine the cup width:
Wow - thank you. I agree with the same manufacturer matching, and I understand RaceFace "owns" Easton so I thought it would be a good combo. However, with all the width/spacing/etc. issues, seems that even with the shared ownership I'm guessing there is still a division enough to cause problems.
Either way, the chart is fabulous. I'll ride this combo til it blows, which according to Volsung it won't take long. LOL.
