Wheels Manufacturing BB86/92 SRAM Bottom Bracket Angular Contact Bearings Red [Rider Review]

 Our "Rider Review" article series features the honest reviews from verified purchasers of Worldwide Cyclery. They contain the photos, thoughts, feedback & overall review you are looking for. 

Picking the right bottom bracket can be a bit of an hassle. Especially when there's so many to choose from that will work with your bike. Our friend, Randy, chose Wheels Manufacturing because of the quality they're known for. See what they think!

Overview

Riding in Sedona Arizona is dusty and dust is not good for bearings. I recently removed the bottom bracket bearings on my Pivot Mach 6 with Wheels Manufacturing's dual row angular contact bearings. The only tools needed, other than run-of-the-mill wrenches were a Press 7 bearing press and a bearing extractor.

Zack at Worldwide set me up with the correct bottom bracket and in about 30 minutes the job was done. I recently read a study done by Wheels Manufacturing on bearing durability which estimated under laboratory conditions an OEM bearing will last 500 miles.

Their dual-row angular contact bearings lasted 5000 miles.

I have used Wheels Manufacturing bearings for the last 6 years and have had no issues despite doing most of my riding in the desert. When I looked at the picture I noticed sweat lines running down the frame right into both my lower pivot and then right into the bottom bracket. Not exactly ideal and much worse than the laboratory conditions WM used in their study.

In this day and age of really good high-end bike frames, the only difference between a new bike frame and one with a few thousand miles on it are the bearings. Bearing replacement is something most riders will have a shop do, but something anyone with an interest can do with the aid of the tutorials from WM's website. There is no need to buy a full set of bearing extractors and drifts because the Press 7 will cover most of the drifts a home bike mechanic needs and one or two extractors will allow for the removal of both the bottom bracket and frame bearings.

Final Thoughts

Once you have those tools, removing and servicing or replacing bearings is easy and noisy frames are a thing of the past.