FSA helps you choose your replacement bottom bracket

So much fun choosing the correct one for your frame and cranks

FSA has come out with its Easy Bottom Bracket tool, to complement its Easy Headset Tool, which was launched last November. Like headsets, bottom brackets are a part of the bike where the proliferation of standards makes finding the correct replacement a real chore.

When you open up the tool at fsaeasybottombrackets.com, you’re confronted first of all with a choice between road and MTB. So far, so good – we know the answer to that one.

Selecting a value for width limits the possible options for diameter and vice versa

Next up, you need your bottom bracket shell width and diameter – there’s a drop down list of possible values for each, with the diameter including 41mm and 42mm values, so you’d better have a good ruler handy. There’s also the trick value “threaded”. Selecting one limits the values for the other, so you can’t choose an impossible combination.

After this, it’s your crankset standard, so make sure you know your BB386Evo from your BB30 (it’s usually written on the crank). Click on the correct standard and, hey presto, you’re presented with multiple BB options for your frame – usually a choice between boring but steady steel bearings and super whizzy, faster baby, faster ceramic, the latter usually also commanding an extravagant price tag. But just think about those marginal gains!

>>> Are marginal gains for everybody?

Another easy choice: lightening fast ceramic or steady-as-she-goes steel?

Click through and you get a full description of your new best friend in the bottom bracket department, including the price in Euros and Dollars, so you can size up if you can afford the extra $150 or so for those marginal gains and ceramic bragging rights.

It says something about the complexities of bottom brackets that it’s taken almost a year to develop a suitable tool, But with FSA offering replacement bottom brackets for all known standards, it’s a handy way to while away your time on a wet winter evening after a particularly creaky ride.

Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Paul Norman

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.