Wolf Tooth Announces New Made In USA Bottom Brackets
Wolf Tooth Bottom Brackets are engineered to be durable, reliable, lightweight, and smooth. The weather sealing includes seals in the spindle, bearing gutters, bearing inner and outer races, shells, and end caps. To prevent creaking, spindle bushings separate the bearing inner race and crank spindle to eliminate metal-on-metal contact. Like most Wolf Tooth components, the new bottom brackets are rebuildable and have replacement parts and service guides via Wolf Tooth Right to Repair, and are machined in Minnesota, USA.
Wolf Tooth Bottom Brackets are available in multiple BSA and T47 internal sizes for maximum spindle compatibility: 24, 29 (DUB), and 30mm. Adjustable-width sleeves allow BSA models to fit 68 and 73mm shells, with additional options available for 83 and 100mm sleeves. T47 Internal models will fit 85.5 to 92mm shells. Wolf Tooth Bottom Brackets are also lighter weight than almost all other similar bottom brackets based on size.
The sealing in Wolf Tooth Bottom Brackets is best-in-class. Five seals and o-rings are designed to balance low drag with superior performance in all conditions. The system of a spindle o-ring, seals on the bearing/bushing gutter, inner (low contact) and outer bearing races, shell o-rings, and a labyrinth-style end cap ensure smooth spinning in sunshine, rain, snow, and mud alike. Wolf Tooth Bottom Brackets don’t creak. Custom bushings separate the bearing inner race and crank spindle to eliminate metal-on-metal contact, which is the leading cause of bottom bracket creaks. This bushing also helps enhance bearing longevity with an interface to the bearing gutter seal for maximum weatherproofing.
The bearings in Wolf Tooth Bottom Brackets feature a custom design. The balls and race are made from a hardened chrome bearing steel. This has a higher surface hardness than stainless, which improves the durability of bearing races and reduces spinning resistance and noise. An ACOSUR ZNA coating has also been applied to the race to provide corrosion resistance that is equal to or better than stainless steel after a 500-hour saltwater test. Ball count varies from size to size for optimal performance. Bearing material paired with an extensive sealing system and the elimination of metal-on-metal contact means Wolf Tooth Bottom Brackets perform, no matter the conditions.
Installation of Wolf Tooth Bottom Brackets can be completed with standard tools – nothing proprietary required. Wolf Tooth also makes bottom bracket tools for easy installation. For BSA bottom brackets, the 44-16 Wolf Tooth Bottom Bracket Tool can install cups for the 24mm spindle, while the 46-12 Tool can be used for 29 and 30mm cups. T47 internal bottom brackets can use the 52-16 BB Tool. The Wolf Tooth Pack Wrench pairs with Wolf Tooth Bottom Bracket Tools for simple installation.
© Paul Kalifatidi
Four colors are currently available for Wolf Tooth bottom brackets: Black, Raw Silver, Orange, and Ultraviolet Purple. These colors match with other components and accessories in the Wolf Tooth Color Shop, where you can shop based on color and pair bottom bracket color with headset, seatpost clamp, bottle cage bolts, pedals, and more.
Wolf Tooth bottom brackets are machined at Wolf Tooth in Minnesota, USA. They are available now at $129.95 for BSA sizes and $139,95 for T47 internal sizes. Find them on WolfToothComponents.com and at distributors and bike shops that stock Wolf Tooth.
Author Info:
Burnsville, MN, United States
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Also America: "Things manufactured in America are way too expensive! I'm buying the cheaper imported version."
Then they get that, and it’s like, “I’m not paying £150 for a stem!” “$200 for pedals? No way!”
Now I’m not saying these people are wrong. I am also unwilling to pay $200 for pedals. But in this case, it seems you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
How much would things cost if they were mass produced here ? (here = your western country)
Who knows, we don't have manufacturing machines nor talent anymore.
(but for instance, Portugal inested in a "bike valley" where they're more or less mass produced, with welding robots, and AFAIK they're kinda competitive price wise)
Wolftooth stuff has mostly been good to me, but there's a lot out there that "Buy American" is just code for set your money on fire.
Hey WT, we have the chainrings, now the BB.... when will we see a WT crank?
I was shocked to learn this, because I’m generally one who will buy the lower priced product manufactured abroad.
As someone who normally buys Wheels MFG BB's, I'll certainly also take a look at Wolftooth next time I need one.
When I first made this comment, all the other comments on the article were about how you could buy 3 XT or DUB BBs for the same price. Almost all of those commenters had American flags next to their names. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I like this ‘rent free’ point. I personally try to make my buying decisions rationally.
I didn’t check it yet, but if these BB’s use standard tools, that’s a big plus.
Definitely true for most western countries, but not to such a huge extent. This could be documented extremely well during covid. The US population was by far the least resilient during the lockdowns. ( Admittedly Germans were only a slight bit better)
This level of details tells me what actually, this might just be also made in the USA. Imma ask their support
Thanks for participating in the forum WT. Your presence here is much appreciated.
As I wrote above, you seem to be the only folks that have been able to incorporate a bushing between the inner race and the spindle on a 30mm BSA BB - effectively achieving what SRAM ate 1mm and x-compatibility for on their DUB idiocy. Between that and the sealing strategy, this looks like a really thoughtfully designed product, with significant investment on a custom bearing to produce instead of OTS bearings. Seems well worth it for folks that have suffered from creaks and leaks on their current 30mm setups.
They use Enduro bearings in their other products anyways it's not a secret
There are bearing manufacturers in the USA that are making much, much higher spec bearings that mainly get used in aerospace applications.
A full new XT bb is about the same price as the replacement bearings ~$35
What makes these bearings not serviceable? Those seals look removable if you're gentle, maybe not more than a few times, but i'd bet you could remove, clean, regrease if you were trying to save $15.
When technical product owners are allowed to contribute to press releases...
I've got a Saint on another bike and they're cheap and last a long time.
To be clear, I’m not saying this isn’t a quality product. It’s just not the practical choice.
I run shimano BBs on pretty much all my bikes, but I would defo throw one of these on next time a need a new BB
Bearing replacement is not much of an advantage though. I guess it's more "eco friendly" since you reuse some parts, but the bearings alone cost as much as an XTR bottom bracket, and spinning a new complete bottom bracket in is easier, so there no benefit in terms of cost or convenience.
So, I don't think these make sense in general if you're running Shimano (24mm spindle) unless it's purely for bling (which is fine if that's your thing). I think they made a 24mm version, because why not, but that's probably not where there bulk of the sales will come from, if I had to guess.
All of that Uber sealing does start to have more of a point with 29/30mm spindle setups, though, and in general the product makes more sense in that context.
This looks to be the lone 30mm BSA BB that was able to incorporate a plastic bushing between the inner bearing race and spindle - effectively achieving what SRAM ate up 1mm for to give us 29mm and yet another incompatibility.
Between that (which I believe required a custom bearing) and their sealing strategy, the price feels justified especially for folks that have had regular issues with creaking or water ingress.
I have Shimano/XTR on one bike, and 30mm cranks using a North Shore Billet bottom bracket on the other.
North Shore Billet took the approach of using angular contact bearings with large bearing shields on the outside that are sandwiched between the cranks and the inner races for preload. It's solid and solves a few issues with BSA and 30mm, but really it just relies on the bearing seals to avoid water ingress, so I'm interested to see how it holds up. The prior Hope Bottom bracket pretty much sucked.
Wish they did press fit and bb30 variants though. Stock threaded BBs are pretty good.
As for dropper cable/housing-pull the old cable-put new cable in. Pull old housing off new cable and pull new housing on. It’s how I do it no matter what. Why would I pull cranks and BB for that job unless I was doing a full tear down. And if I’m doing that-I’m already taking everything apart……
if price is not faar away, i would buy even brake pads from none chinese countries, but 2usd/ pair vs 25 usd/pair is something i do not support, especially if they are from same source.
the shown product has a good price / quality ratio, we all should consider local products more
Also, would be nice if WT would release a preloader like CC has….since their purples are not the same ;-)