When I was reading up what to get when we were building up our Surly Long Haul Truckers I came across the Hollowtech II’s. I did only find good reviews about them and everyone I spoke to highly recommend these bottom brackets.

I have now cycle just a tad over 5,700 miles on my LHT, mostly commuting, touring to come. But yesterday I started to feel some play when pedalling. At first I was thinking that this was the Crank Brothers pedals which were playing up again. They were so I swapped my pedals over so that I can fix them later, thinking that that would be it of today’s fettling.

Though today I decided that it was about time to give the Surly a good scrub behind the ears and a check over, since I got rather dirty when swapping pedals yesterday. While scrubbing I found out that the Hollowtech II was rocking and that the left hand side, or is it leg?, bearings were very loose, or rather gone. I could move the whole thing around very easily and there was much black grime, muck, dirt which felt like there were metal bits in it.

I’m sure that I fitted the bottom bracket correctly as for once I did read the manual and had help from my friend @ the LBS. And after looking at this great video from Hope Technology on how to fit a hollowtech bottom bracket. I’m very sure that I fitted it correctly.

Now I wonder if it is a bad model a fluke or the Hollowtech II ain’t built for my kinda riding.

Related posts:

1. Exploding balls The other day while cycling home from work. I heard and felt the loud noise of what seemed to be...
2. Rolling rolling rolling I managed to change the dead ball bearing in the HOPE hub and what can say. ...
3. Surly recall in Australia As you know I’m a big fan of the Surly LHT, I just spotted this in Australia. Might be worth...