More Power And Longer Life... Should You Be Getting Your Frame Faced?

Mass production frames can be imperfect. Should it bother you, asks Michelle Arthurs-Brennan

- Michelle Arthurs-Brennan

Facing is, put simply, the process of removing excess material from your bike frame.

Closely related is reaming – cleaning out or enlarging a hole – and tapping, which is the process of cleaning out a thread or recutting a new thread.

A mechanic will apply this process to any part of the frame or fork which needs to be mated to a component: head tubes, stems, disc brake mounts, bottom brackets.

It’s not necessarily expensive – we were quoted between £45 and £100 for a facing, as it’s not a laborious or skilled job. The cost to a workshop comes with the tooling – a full set is around £1,000.

For the customer, a perfectly faced frame will pay dividends in terms of longevity and efficiency.

A bottom bracket shell which is exactly the right size and shape will mean that the bottom bracket sits straight, resulting in a crankset that runs more smoothly.

“People chase every single watt, and spend loads of money on ceramic this and aero that – but having bottom bracket bearings that run concentrically and efficiently will probably save them way more lost power,” says Prescott.

Disc brake caliper mounts are another area where facing could be important.

Aeightbikes’ Glen Whittington said: “A lot of people talk about the bedding in period [of disc brakes]. You do need to get a little bit of brake pad material onto the rotors, but that will happen really quickly. What’s often happening is that the pads aren’t hitting the rotor squarely, but after a few rides they’ll wear unevenly so that they are.

“Facing the caliper mounts would mean everything lines up straight away.”