Campagnolo Veloce (SC-S)

Price Paid:  $10.00 at Came with the bike

Summary:
I've used 2 of these bottom brackets now. Both were supplied with bikes I bought and I thought I'd just use them until they wore out then replace them with something of better quality. The first one, after working itself loose every few hundred kilometres, has now decided that it's part of the frame and refuses to be removed. The second, which fortunately I was able to remove, has worn out in less than 4000km of dry weather riding. The last Chorus bottom bracket I used had done around 25000km and it still felt brand new.

If you MUST buy this (or the Centaur/Daytona or Mirage) bottom bracket then ensure that you buy a very good quality tool (NOT the Park tool) so that you can remove it and re-grease the threads at regular intervals to avoid the problem of it becoming "part" of your frame.

Strengths:
Cheap.

Weaknesses:
Wears out quickly.
"Welds" itself to your frame over time and is VERY difficult to remove.

Similar Products Used:
Campagnolo Chorus and various Shimano.

Price Paid:  $10.00 at Oldham Cycles

Favorite Ride:
Holme Moss - Derbyshire

Bike Setup:
Ribble 653, Cinelli, full Veloce gruppo

Summary:
I got the BB with the groupset but only for a spare as I wanted to use my existing Shimano UG70 as it was much lighter. However I couldn't get the chainset aligned quite right so I threw in the Campy. I went for steel cups as I'd heard horror stories from my local bike shop about the ally ones welding into the frame with corrosion. And anyway you dont save much weight with the ally cups as the whole unit weighs a ton (well, half a pound more than the UG70). The thing looks cheap and nasty and it's certainly cheap enough at £7. But it has run faultlessly through rain and shine and for the sake of half a pound, I'll run it till it wears out. Then I'll probably replace it with a Chorus unit.

Strengths:
Reliability

Weaknesses:
Weight

Similar Products Used:
Shimano UG70,UG50, F.A.G. etc