If you're reading this, you're interested in buying some speed. It's not free speed, but if you ride lots, it could be close. Our retro-fitted Shimano XTR M970 Ceramic Bottom Bracket will rob you of less friction than your standard steel ball bearing bottom bracket.

Much of maximizing performance is about minimizing friction losses, be it from interacting with gravity, the ground, or metal. You pump your tires to the proper pressure, tweak your suspension so it's flexing just enough, keep your chain lubed so it's moving and relatively gunk-free, and you keep grease on the bearings. That's good, but what if you could go further? At a bicycle industry trade show we were dozing through our tour of the FSA offerings until one of their guys spun a ceramic-bearing derailleur pulley for us. It spun and spun and spun. We immediately thought of Shimano bottom brackets, which have never spun with the ease of a traditional Campagnolo square-taper bottom bracket. You've probably been at this before -- set up a bottom bracket, put on the crank, torque everything to spec, and spin. The spin is underwhelming to the point of wondering if you set it up wrong and there's unnecessary friction somewhere in the system.

We're there with every Shimano bottom bracket we assemble. So, we've sourced Shimano bottom-bracket cartridges, designed our own press, and are installing Enduro Ceramic Bearings, which we're selling as a complete bottom bracket designed to work with Shimano Hollowtech II, external bearing cranksets. The bearings are made from Silicon Nitride, which is waaay harder than steel ball bearings, seven times to be specific. They're no more than 5/1,000,000 of an inch from being perfectly round. And they're 60% lighter to boot. The balls run on steel races and the cartridges are pressed by us into the bottom bracket cups.

We've also made a change that we believe constitutes a performance improvement. The Shimano bottom bracket comes standard with 1/8" balls. We have increased the size of the balls to 5/32". The bearing has a little bigger contact area, which rolls a bit smoother, distributing weight over a larger area -- good when landing or any time you're suddenly loading lots of force on the bottom bracket. It also means eliminating a plastic shield that had a spacer that used to ride between the inner race and the bottom bracket spindle, which is another potentially flexing part we've removed. Now the cartridge rides directly on the spindle. We have also worked with Enduro on the fabrication of a 70-durometer silicone dust seal that fits between the bearings and the crankarm. We think it's a better cover than the standard one Shimano provided -- it's thinner and has less drag than the stock cover, fitting closer than the stock cover. The result is less grit and gunk will getting past the cover. The color is a distinctive orange, which we like because it signifies increased performance.

Finishing off the package is the lube. We've chosen Rock 'n' Roll Lubrication Super-Web Grease. While you may or may not have heard of it, it's like gold in the bike industry. It's not only extra slippery, but it stays where it should -- a result of the hydraulic-like effect caused by the webbed substance. The "web" in the name is due to the webby result of trying to pull some lube off a bearing -- it looks like Spiderman has been working inside. There's PTFE (sometimes called Teflon) in the mix.

Included with the Shimano XTR M970 Ceramic Bottom Bracket are the original bearings and seals we pulled out. Maintenance should be the same as with steel ball bearings. However frequently you were pulling and cleaning your old bottom bracket is the same for the new. 96g.