Easton Bottom Brackets have been developed for use in combination with our new Easton EC90 SL crankset. Bottom Brackets are an essential part of the bicycle that is often overlooked and forgotten, but we saw the BB as another opportunity for performance gains and improved efficiency. Typically with any bearing there is a tradeoff between protecting the bearing internals for longevity and bearing seal drag which impact efficiency. For our new BB we have developed a seal that achieves a very low level of seal drag while still retaining excellent protection qualities. Our in-house testing procedure included developing a 24 hour continuous water invasion test, essentially pouring water into the side of the spinning bearings for an entire day continuously. And our new seal proved to have excellent contaminant exclusion. Combining those results with extensive real-world testing, we are confident of the seal’s performance and overall BB durability while being impressed by the overall efficiency. We then used a new thinner and low viscosity bearing grease and modified the percentage of grease fill to again find the perfect balance between durability and minimized running friction. We found that a thinner grease, with the correct fill level, was more durable than a thicker grease when spinning at high speed. A thicker lubricant under the centrifugal force would be thrown to the outer bearing race where it would stick and not return to the inner race under lower speeds, leaving it susceptible to increased operating temperatures and higher wear. If you’re running the best crankset on the market, you should have the performance BB to match.