We looked into it in the 90's at Syncros. What we found is that needle bearings are much more sensitive to contamination than a ball bearing and BB's are likely to have some contamination. You also still need to consider what is going to support the axial load. As noted bellow there were some old xtr BB's that used needles for a while.
March 1, 2018, 12:36 p.m. - NealWood
We looked into it in the 90's at Syncros. What we found is that needle bearings are much more sensitive to contamination than a ball bearing and BB's are likely to have some contamination. You also still need to consider what is going to support the axial load. As noted bellow there were some old xtr BB's that used needles for a while.