[Closed] 2K bikes with loose bearing headsets - why?

it's an invisible part of the bike

not just cheap headsets, but cheap BB, cheap wheel hubs, cheap cabling,cheap chain/cassette, anywhere where they can "get away with it" because the product manager at the bike company knows riders concentrate on the more visible items when making purchasing bikes

Witness the practise of "speccing a bike for the showroom with a high end rear derailleur"

When in reality a reasonable rear mech with higher quality shifters actually provides a better shifting bike, and makes tears less likely when you smack the rear mech on a rock and brake it!

Kona used to make a point of speccing full group sets without any upgrades and decent hubs/head sets. And got flamed for being under specced and expensive. You can't win.

Witness the practise of "speccing a bike for the showroom with a high end rear derailleur"

my wife's stumpy came with xtr rear mech and a no named headset. It's been absolutely faultless in 7 years of riding all conditions (the headset that is) and It's never been regreased or serviced.

Most people will never know it is a cheap part.

When it fails, the shop fixes it.

You still bought the bike. That was the goal of the brand...

Because they can and most don't notice. I guess they see any savings being better in their pocket than ours or as a good way to fit a posher rear mech.

Is this your Whyte?

Yes - although I did get it for £1300 - so £35 for a CRC FSA Orbit zs seems OK. I guess I will need to pop out the cups and not simply swop in the ACB bearings. Mine are simply free in a race.

Or just grease it and put some new bearings in for a few quid when necessary. A new headset will hardly give a performance improvement or weight saving.

It's not all bikes, my cheap-ish Merida and On One both came with decent branded cartridge headsets that seem to be doing OK. As above though, no magazine review ever praises the headset, QR skewers, inner tubes and BB but will often say that it's nice it has an XT mech at this price point.

I might throw away the race and pop in some loose stainless ones with alot of grease.

I might throw away the race and pop in some loose stainless ones with alot of grease.

Surely that would mean the bearings would be rolling around on the fork crown? .

I think he means cage not race

To defend the manufacturers I think that they do look at a lot of bikes when they come back for warranty work etc. Apparently they find that most owners don't wear out the cheap bits

Personally what i find annoying is cost saving on bits that can't really be replaced on their own. In my case spokes. I spent alot of time poppping into the LBS for new rear wheel spokes so asked what the problem was. They explained that OEM wheel often use rubbish spokes. The rim and hub were fine. But no point paying for new spokes to connect low end bits

I do mean the cage - whoops. £5 spent on stainless bearings. Sorted.

iirc - don't put too many bearing in - the cage is designed to stop "ball on ball action" so to speak 🙂

Nowt inherently wrong with loose bearings - it's just that good quality ones only tend to come with cartridges now, but if what you have is OK, then it's far from the worst place to save money. Sounds like you have a good solution with new stainless bearings (before the races get damaged).

ball on ball contact isn't that big a deal - you'll find that standard Shimano hubs have balls in with no cage, or at least they did last time I took one apart (and lots of other bearings - the "cartridges" in my expensive headset are like that as well). No load on the contact between balls, so little friction. Don't overload though - one less than the most you can fit in is a good rule of thumb.

Accountant Spec.
Make a list of what you want on a bike
List the prices
Drop part spec where you can until you hit the budget figure

First to go
BB
Headset
Cassette

It all depends what else came on the £2k bike

I was pleasantly surprised to pick up a midrange halfords bike and find a proper FSA orbit in it. And also 105 all the way through it, not just the rear mech but the cassette and chain, and decent quality cables too, nice touches

Northwind - Member

I was pleasantly surprised to pick up a midrange halfords bike and find a proper FSA orbit in it.

Are you sure that it has cartridge bearings in it?

[url= http://www.fullspeedahead.com/products/headsets/orbit-dl-threadless-headset/ ]FSA Orbit DL[/url]

[img] ?c=2[/img]

[quote=JoeG ]Are you sure that it has cartridge bearings in it?

I don't think he claimed it did - and as I pointed out, the only issue is whether it's decent quality, not whether the bearings have got extra bits around them (what exactly do you think cartridges have inside them?)

Are you sure that it has cartridge bearings in it?

cagéd bearing like that are better than distributing loads on a headset than cartridge bearing.

little manufacturers cnc aluminium alloy and bang in a cartridge because it's easier to manufacture.

grease it up and don't worry about it.

It did, btw. Though I'd rather have a quality caged bearing headset like the one pictured, than the usual unsealed rubbish.

Having found and read this thread,I've just realized that the majority of headset replacements I do are failed sealed headsets. Open ball headsets in services rarely need replacing, just a wipe down and a good squirt of grease. This seems to be the way with bikes around 4 years old onwards (for sealed)and even bikes that are between 1 and 3 years, the open balls and cages are more often than not still rust free. Some open balled headsets that slipped through the net of not getting greased out the box will usually die within 2-3 years but you often find open ball headsets that have had a squirt of grease every 3 or so years that go on and on for 2 decades. This won't be the case for sealed headsets unless they are decent quality or like mine, a £30quid Cane Creek c3, it's been on 3 bikes and dried off/re-smeared with grease every 6 months or so and feeling like new. Even sealed bearings are worth a smear of grease to help keep out the hose water and chemicals from breaking the grease down.

Difference between "still serviceable after 4 years" and "maintenance free for 2-3".

I've always had S3 headsets in my 1.1/8 bikes, I liked that you could put bearings in with a generous dolop of grease, and ignore them for 2 years. Then just pop new bearings in. Losse ball headsets might last indefinately with maintenance, but it's yet another "every 3 months in winter" job, on top of everything else, I like my bikes to 'just work' when I pull them out the shed in a hurry for a mid week night ride. Which means a combination of maintenance and specing bits that require as little attention as possible.

...but why?

down to the bike shop spanner-monkeys 😡