FIRST LOOK: Kogel Bottom Brackets

A bottom bracket must be one of the least thought about parts on Australian bikes. On the whole, we ride in dry conditions almost all year, so depending on high quality, well sealed bearings doesn’t really come up as much as it does for riders in the UK, Europe, North America – or just anywhere where wet, grimey trails make up a big part of the year.

But with the move to press fit bottom brackets, oversized crank spindles, and seemingly endless varieties of bottom bracket ‘standards’ – the need for variety, and quality, became apparent. Especially when a press fit BB can’t be tightened up – if tolerances are the slightest bit off, you have a creaking bike. Or worse, an ovalised BB shell.

Kogel are actually an American brand, from a Dutch guy who lived in Belgium, and they’re now imported into Australia by an Australian bloke.

We’ve been sent a PressFit 30 Bottom Bracket with ‘CX Seals’ for a long term review. PressFit 30 bottom brackets are typically short lived. The bearing interface is hard to seal, and their stance is very narrow.

But Kogel guarantee their Ceramic bearings for 12 months, and upgrade that to 24 months with the appropriate servicing. Having blasted through  $60 PF30 BBs in two weeks before that makes the $265 asking price more than justifiable.

They have a big range of bottom brackets as well, including many ‘adaptor’ bottom brackets, say to drop a BB30 shell to a 24mm spindle and so on. You can read the full details here – or see our long term review in a coming issue.