Next year I’m hoping to get a new road bike frame from Waltly. This would be deeply unfashionable, with rim brakes, zero integration or aero features, but would fit and be easy to service. Since I have a set of Hollowgram cranks I’d like to use (light, stiff, good ankle clearance) a T47x68mm BB shell would make sense, and should be possible. The BB needs to be reliable, and not creak(!). I don’t care about ceramic bearings, but would prefer something monobloc style to avoid any alignment issues if possible; nobody I know of locally has T47 chasing or facing tools and I expect doing this with Ti would be problematic anyway. Suggestions?
Never heard of Waltly, but a brief look tells me they are marketing themselves as premium enough that they should be facing and correctly aligning the BB threads as standard practice. Ask them if they do it, and if they don’t, ask why not.
I don’t have a BB suggestion, but that’s mainly because I’m a believer in ensuring the frame is right, so there isn’t a need for a particular BB to help solve an issue with it. There is no guarantee it will sufficiently offset the core problem anyway.
The only bikes I’ve had with BB issues (creaking or otherwise) were where there was an issue with the frame, or where I’d been an idiot and not correctly installed the BB or cranks.