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It may seem simple enough, but misalignment from improper installs are a big cause of premature wear. The exception is pedals and very occasionally in headsets, but even then they’ve lost a lot of ground to newer and cheaper tech. Like any moving part on your bike, bearings require servicing. Maintenance intervals will be longer on higher-quality bearings, but no one bearing is truly ‘fit and forget’.

At the higher-end, most brands have moved away from loose ball bearings, though Shimano and Campagnolo are notable holdouts, with both using very high-quality cup and cone bearings in most of their hubs. Shimano also uses loose bearings in its pedals. They may sound like a dry and boring topic (pun intended), but they have a big bearing (eyyy) on the overall performance of a bearing. Needle bearings, which are also known as roller bearings, are relatively uncommon in the cycling world. They often have a corresponding universal identifier, which in the case of the aforementioned bearing, would be 6802, for instance.

How to maintain bearings

What the ABEC standard qualifies is bore diameter (an acceptable variation of the size of the inner bearing hole), parallelism (width variation), and the radial raceway run-out (variations in the groove in which the balls sit).

Servicing bearings finishes with the proper lubricant — talk to your local service providers to learn what’s best for your bike components and riding environment Thomas McDaniel / Immediate Media

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They can create incredibly smooth rolling and stable platforms, especially under high loads, but in the cycling industry there’s a tendency to shy away from them due to the expense and complication of creating good mating surfaces. Subsequently, they sacrifice a small amount of performance because forces within these moving parts usually have a non-radial vector associated. As a result, they have to compensate with decreased tolerances.

If you look very closely, you can see a row of needle bearings inside these Speedplay Zero pedals. Thomas McDaniel / Immediate Media This precision is where brands such as Industry 9, Chris King, White Industries, Phil Wood and Alchemy Wheel Works get their reputation. What makes a bearing high quality?Loose ball-bearing sizes are determined by the diameter of the ball bearing itself. This is usually expressed as a fraction of an inch: 3/16in (4.7625 mm). Loose ball bearings are sometimes held within a retainer, which is also known as a cage (hence the named ‘caged bearings’). This is usually made from pressed steel and holds the loose ball bearings apart from one another. Headsets pose a unique characteristic in that they have angled races. Their sizing might read more like ‘46.9 x 7 x 45°’ to identify the OD, width and angular measurements of the bearing race, respectively. For most quality bearings, including every bearing Enduro Bearings makes, Panaccione assures “with a small blade and a careful hand, seals can be removed from the inside race for servicing“. What are bearings made from? A ball-and-retainer system is similar to a loose-ball setup but makes for less expensive assembly, and are thus often used on entry-level components. Thomas McDaniel / Immediate Media