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My one year old Breezer Beltway 8+ (Gates carbon drive, eccentric bottom bracket) is starting to cause problems. Sometimes when pedaling forward, usually, but not always with high pressure, I hear creaking from the the area of the bottom bracket. What’s more, when this happens, and I then start to pedal backwards, it not only creaks, but I feel resistance.

When I remove the belt, and turn the cranks on their own, the bottom bracket does not rotate freely, in either way.

What do these symptoms indicate?

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    First thing to do when you get noise or vibration from the BB is to grab each crank arm, individually, and shake, feeling for any looseness, either in the BB bearings (a "gotta tend to eventually" situation) or in the joint between crank arm and crank shaft (a "Danger Will Robinson" condition).
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Sep 24, 2017 at 18:11
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    Agreed - take the belt off to temporarily isolate front from back, and see what happens. Sounds like you need a new BB cartridge, or cup and cone needs a clean and adjustment.
    – Criggie ♦
    Sep 24, 2017 at 18:15
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    @Criggie "or cup and cone needs a clean and adjustment" not happening in a sealed cartridge system.
    – Kaz
    Sep 25, 2017 at 2:44
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    Is the bike under any sort of warranty still? 1Year old - If you're in the EU don't all things have a 2 year warranty minimum and a "fit for purpose" for ~five years ?
    – Criggie ♦
    Sep 25, 2017 at 2:54
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    Sometimes bb's go in a year. The quality control isn't perfect. But a decent one for road riding should give you years of service.
    – Batman
    Sep 25, 2017 at 14:46

1 Answer 1

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Answer Your bottom bracket is stuffed.

The cheap AND the correct fix is to replace it outright. All I found on the web was that this bike has an "external bearing system" bottom bracket, which could be any of 9 different standards.

The replacement has to match the crank interface too, which could be ISIS, Octalink, or square taper.

Misc one from Wiggle's site

Specialised tools for this - you might need a crank extractor, which forces the two crank arms off the bottom bracket spindle. Then you need a special wrench to undo the visible round bits poking out the side. They may be threadded or they may be pressed in.

Lastly you may require a press to push the two halves together or you may get away with using the special wrench to thread them back in.

You'll also need grease or copperslip, and standard workshop tools.

Would be cheaper to get a LBS to do this if you don't own or want to own the tools. And a BB should last you at least 10,000 km.

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  • Uh... with external BBs the axle is a fixed part of cranks, and " ISIS, Octalink, or square taper" is not an issue. The 10000 km was reasonable expectation with square taper but not with newer systems.
    – ojs
    Sep 25, 2017 at 6:30
  • One arm seems to have a hollow spindle attached to it, and I can look through all the way to the other end, where there is a screw. Not sure if that narrows it down :-]
    – Joachim Breitner
    Sep 25, 2017 at 12:44
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    Gates cranks come in either Shimano Hollowtech 2 or SRAM GXP I believe. If you post a photo of both sides someone can likely identify it for you. External BB replacement is actually one of the easier self maintenance procedures (IMHO), requiring only a couple of special tools (well, and a torque wrench if you want to do it really properly). Then again, it's simple and fast for an LBS to do too.
    – Argenti Apparatus
    Sep 25, 2017 at 14:38
  • Yes, anything that I cannot do with a folding hex wrench set I will have done by a shop. After all, I got this particular bike (belt, internal gears, etc.) in order to have to do the least maintenance possible…
    – Joachim Breitner
    Sep 25, 2017 at 19:09
  • Since I have the same bike, I think, I believe that the resistance when pedaling backwards (once per rotation) is actually from the Shimano internally geared hub. I'm just trying to figure out how to keep the left crank from loosening -- it fell off and I must have lost a critical lock washer or something, or it just needs to be torqued much more than I can with a T allen bolt wrench.
    – NerdDad
    May 12, 2018 at 21:30

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