My lapierre xc bike came with a shimano octalink set up:

Chainset:
SHIMANO FCM430 Alivio octalink
Chainrings:
44x32x22
Bottom Bracket:
Shimano Octalink BBES25B18

1) Do you know how tough these bottom brackets are? what abuse will it take?
2) Is there a more durable or smoother running replacement for the BBES25B18?
also
3) any recommendations a replacement crank and bottom bracket (mind its smaller than AM bottom brackets) that would be stronger than this one?

Well a new Derore crankset would be lighter or maybe XT or XTR? SRAM/truative make some light cranksets but you are stuck with there proprietry GXP BB's wich are not very good unless you buy a Hope BB with a special adapter. Plenty of other cranksets that are lighter thab alvio so taske your pick.

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so i can install another crank? that i didnt know, i thought the bottom bracket was too small as its pretty skinny looking as per pic...


is it a 68mm then? ..think im too used to looking at AM cranks/bbs

so, for trail riding, what would be best bang for buck in terms of weight reduction if this crank set weighs 960g (crank) + 250g (BB) and i wanted to replace the whole crankset/bb?