Dave Thompson said:"Tim McNamara" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:(Saltytri) said:There is lots material on this question. Do a google groups
search and you'll find plenty of opinions. I vote for for
Ultegra. In spite of a few detractors, Octalink is a
well-established standard and the Ultegra version is
long-lasting, easy to install, and works just fine. No flames
please.
Flames? Why? I will however disagree with you. Octalink is not a
"well established" standard in that it is used by one company
primarily and a few other small players in the market. The square
taper is still the standard. The ISIS design is superior to the
Octalink IMHO. I've seen enough trashed Octalink cranks already
with come complaints of backlash but mostly smashing the splines in
the crank during installation. It's not a good design- no one
should confuse prolifity with good design. :-)
Smashed splines on cranks during installation means improper
installation techniques!! Easy to mung up if not done right, easier
to do right.
Whoa there, fella! The fact that the desing is, as you point out,
"easy to mung up" indicates its inferiority.
Quoted message said:Octalink works well, and is ubiquitous in the Shimano line (most
common brand on bikes) Octalink will be around for quite a while,
there's enough in the supply chain now to last for many years.
And Shimano is not keeping the Octalink design but is instead phasing
it out, reportedly. Hmmmm.
Quoted message said:Additonally, not many keep a bike beyond a few years, and even fewer
keep them without 'upgrading' in one fashion or other somewhat
frequently.
Is there a point in this? Not being awash with disposable income, I
keep bikes for years. Let's see, I've got two bikes over 20 years
old; one bike 8 years old, and one bike (my race bike AAMOF) 5 or 6
years old. Every ride I am on, I see people riding bikes from the
late 70's to late 80's- dozens of them. People don't generally
replace bikes frequently except racers and racer wannabes. Makes
standardization an actual issue and not a matter of fads a la Shimano.
Quoted message said:The diff between ISIS and Octalink in practical terms amounts to
less than a hill of beans. All of the anecdotal "evidence" presented
here doesn't take account of the tens of thousand of people who have
zero problems with their equipment. Choose whichever bottom
bracket/crankset you want and buy it now to enjoy. If you keep
waiting for the next best thing, you'll keep waiting.
The square taper has worked fine for, what, 50 to 60 yeasr? It's not
going to stop working fine any time soon. The Octalink design doesn't
work fine, you you point out it is easy to mung it up in installation.
Sort of like the 1978 Chevy Monza in which you had to unbolt the motor
mounts and raise the engine two inches to be able to change the plugs-
bad design in practice. Additionally, as has been previously
discussed, the Octalink design is not an interference fit- which the
ISIS is- and thus there is the issue of developing backlash in the
left crank/BB interface that has been reported in rec.bikes.tech in
the past. The ISIS also has much larger and harder to damage splines.
It is the better design. I was sorry to see an otherwise sensible
maker adopt the Octalink design (Ritchey) for their cranks, only to
have Shimano pull the rug out from under their "standard."
What's on my bikes? One ISIS, 10 square tapers (including two
tandems).
