Rider Review: Hope Press Fit PF41 Bottom Bracket

If you ride in a wet area of the world then you are probably familiar with the havoc that can be wreaked on bike components. One of the first things to degrade is any of the bearings on a typical bike. Our customers Milt Scholl shares his experience with installing his Hope Press Fit GXP conversion kit. Check it out!

Overview

I ride trails here in the Pacific Northwest on a drop-bar 29'er, fully rigid with a carbon frame and fork. Covered in mud and trail debris is the bike's typical state more than six months of the year, and under all that muck is a new Hope PF41 Bottom Bracket. After about a year the original bottom bracket began to creak and even loosen. Re-seating the spindle, torquing everything is spec only helped slightly. So I researched replacement bottom brackets.

The bike has Press Fit bottom bracket where the cups are pressed into the frame. In the original bottom bracket, nothing is connected even the center tube is a slip fit. So rather than replace the existing bottom bracket with one of the same brand, I looked for BB's that at least connected the bearing cups with a threaded centered tube and that led me to the Hope. The Hope PF41 bottom bracket has machined aluminum Press Fit cups with sealed stainless steel bearings and an aluminum center tube that is threaded and connects the cups into a rigid unit. Since I have a SRAM GXP spindle I needed the Hope Conversion bushings.

I also needed the Hope Bottom Bracket tool - which is a bit more than just a bearing/cup press.

Installation took about an hour - although a good part of the time was finding a wood dowel to tap out the old bottom bracket cups, which I found where made of plastic! The Hope BB comes with a very nice set of instructions although it is much easier to read online. Yes, there are more than a few steps, but it is all very simple and the Hope BB installation tool makes it easy.

The Hope installation tool is like most all bearing/cup tools except for the big hex nut at one end that fits the center tube and is used to tighten it in place. Part of the process is seating the GXP conversion bushings, the last is re-seating the spindle. I found that the Hope tolerances are tighter than the original bearings, everything fit together very smoothly, especially the GXP spindle.

Final Thoughts

I have about 300 miles on this now - a typical ride is about 30 miles and over 3000 feet of climbing - and no creaks, no loosening, no worries.