Hey all, I have a Trek Domane setup on my Wahoo Kickr for TR workouts, and I am on my third BB90 in five months (keeps corroding from sweat). Nothing is worse than feeling that side-to-side play and bearings grinding mid-interval…
I have the tools to replace the BB90 – it’s a terrible bracket standard that leaves the bearings way too exposed, but it’s all I got until I can afford my next bike (happy to take suggestions for a good trainer frame).
I routinely wash my bike and I generously use Park Tool HPG-1 on my BB bearings and spindle. However, my sweat must be radioactive because I notice the corrosion within a few weeks of BB installation.
Other than keeping the BB clean, well-greased, and ensuring torque on the left-crank (12-14nm), I am open to suggestions for preserving the BB90. How do you guys and gals keep sweat away from the BB without affecting crank rotation, if at all possible?
Thanks a ton, and FIVE STARS always to the TR team and this awesome forum!
What is your fan situation? If you are sweating and dripping enough to kill BB’s, I’d guess you could benefit from .ore and better fans. 2 or 3 of the Lasko Performance fans and even cold air can make a huge difference.
Do you have anything like the sweat catchers in use? They can sometimes catch dripping sweat.
Essentially, eliminate sweat as much as possible first, then control any of it that remains to keep it from reaching the BB.
It’s really hard to see how you could sweat enough to destroy bottom brackets. How does it even drip in to there? And if you are sweating that much then you need another fan.
I have one pretty strong ground fan, but I see how optimizing the fan situation would be a good preventive measure.
Temperature probably gets to around 85 degrees in the room I use for training. I’ve heard the team mention Lasko fans several times on the podcast. I’ll try a couple out and possibly a sweat guard, if necessary.
For reference, I am a heavy sweater outside when the heat is up. I train at 70*F or less in my cave, have 3 fans with 2 of those ported to pull cold air from outside anytime it’s cooler outside. All that leads to me rarely having a single drop of sweat hit the floor in even hard workouts.
At 85*F I would melt and be pouring on the bike. If that is the case for you , I think more cooling could reduce sweat and maybe help power too.
I wrap a wash cloth around my seat post and junction of the seat stay, seat tube, and top tubes. I secure it on the rear with three clothes pins. I drape a second wash cloth over the top tube and tuck it under the edge of the first cloth. Everything is tight and does not touch my legs. It catches all of the sweat and stops it from going into seat tube and further down to bottom bracket. I remove these and wash or air dry outside after each ride. This has worked very well for me and protected my bike for the long term.
I’ve found that simple cable clamps work really well around a microfiber towel wrapped around the top tube. Was using clothes pins before, which were pretty flimsy (and annoying to setup). Works great for catching most of the sweat that would otherwise run down my frame.
Given the time of year, I thought it’d be worth reminding you to clean your turbo bike and get the sweat off. This is a customer’s turbo bike in for a service. The sweat seems to have corroded through the aluminium BB. It wasn’t obvious until I used a wipe to clean off what I thought were white sweat salts around the cable guide. The more I wipe, the bigger the hole gets. The headset bearings took some getting out, too.
When I’ve replaced bb on bikes for the trainer, I use extra grease on the outside of the bearings on the idea that the extra grease would help keep sweat/moisture out. It can get messy potentially, but to me it makes sense. One bike had plastic shields that I could use to also hold more grease and be more of a physical shield. I use Phil’s waterproof grease and it seems to be the best IMO. I’ve used it for decades. Park Tool has a similar grease, and likely other vendors do too.
On the bike thong idea, I’ve always thought they were designed backwards as sweat running into the bottom bracket is more likely. But protecting headsets was way easier using wrist bands, and I wished there were leg bands too.
My feet seem to sweat a lot too, which sounds weird for some reason, and I wondered how much of that ends up on the frame.
But 80 to 95 degrees? I’d pass out. If it gets much above 75 I’m melting all over the place. I have 5 fans, including 2 on the smart bike and a ceiling fan, and one for hard workouts. A Lasko floor drier fan blowing on feet and lower legs, a Vornado on thighs and two Vornados and the two bike fans for upper body, and I can still raise the temps 3 or 4 degrees… I used the A/C last week once. Heat management is a thing…
