Although Wilderness Trail Bikes has had Suntour be the maker and seller of mass produced Grease Guard B/B's, Suntour has left the bike industry for good and WTB has come up with version based closely on the Suntour implementation. WTB has this bottom bracket made in Japan by the Tange company in Osaka. (Our understanding is that Marui Ltd. is the sole export agent for Tange. WTB's relationship with Marui probably came from when they were designing parts for Specialized. It si well known that Rio Marui offered unusla assistance and support to Specialized in their formative years, ages 1 to 12)
The Paradigm employs what we call "Standard" design, having Fixed drive cups with an adjustable non-drive cup and fixed bearing width. Grease Guard is a name that WTB uses to describe their grease injection system. Grease is squirted into a hole in the crank arm cap and pushes its way through the spindle to emerge on the inner side of a sealed bearing cartridge that has its inner seal removed, allowing the grease to pass through the bearing near the spindle. When the older grease emerges outside around the spindle it can be wiped away.
The spindle is made of forged steel that is machined after forging to perfect its surface. The ends are bored to a 37mm depth and tapped with 8mm x 1mm crank bolt threads. At each end, a small hole is drilled into the spindle that ends in the crank bolt hole. When the bearing cup is in place these holes will fill the bearing cavity with grease. The drive cup is made of machined aluminum and has the 1 way purge bearing machine pressed in place. A rubber seal held in place by a steel cap forces injected grease toward the outward direction. This fixed cup has two sides cut parallel at a 36mm distance for a B/B spanner (Park HCW4, or Sugino B/B tools) to tighten. The non-drive cup, also machined of aluminum threads into the left side of the B/B shell. It has six equidistant square notches in its face so a Park SPA4 pin spanner can be used to tighten it. A steel lockring with six square notches on its perimeter is used to cinch the cup in place. Any hook spanner will work on the lockring.
The included set of crank arm bolts and washers are made of nickel finished steel. The Paradigm B/B is available in a 113mm or 122mm spindle to fit a 68mm wide shell. The 113 x 68mm B/B weighs 241 grams, the steel bolts add another 29 1/2 grams for a total weight of 270 1/2 grams. The 122mm version has a total weight of 282 grams.
Spindle Length - 13 - 22 $Price in Catalog
