Bottom Bracket Destroyer

• In the short time that I've known P, I've known him to destroy bicycles and bicycle parts. An aluminum Trek 1200... a pair of cyclocross cranks a couple of years back... and now, in most impressive fashion, a SRAM/Truvativ external bearing bottom bracket.

  Now, I'm the first to admit the obvious drawbacks of the external bearing BBs. They don't last very long, are impossible to seal, and do have a tendency to come loose after only a few month's use. But P here somehow managed to not only roast the bearings, but also eat away at the cups. From the inside! Tiny metal rodents appear to be living inside P's custom steel TATI roadie, chewing away at his bottom bracket, and spitting it back out... filling his bottom bracket shell with several ounces of mysterious looking silver aluminum powder.

  Best of all, the cups were entirely frozen -- so frozen, in fact, that I had to break out the breaker bar. The five meter long breaker bar. The five meter long breaker bar that is actually a store fixture used to hang striped socks. But even with the breaker bar, I could only turn the cups 1/16th at a time, meaning that it took all afternoon to remove the bottom bracket. And now it's time to go home, eat some rice, and pray that I don't get dropped en route to Indiana tomorrow morning. I'll install P's new bottom bracket later in the day, but I will advise him to replace it every few months this time, so we don't have to repeat this afternoon's struggle.

  Also: any of you other four season, high mileage, torque monsters with external BBs -- you might want to bring them in soon for a look-see.