Bicycle Mechanics - Which bearings are better, braced or balls only?

The question concerns the bottom bracker bearings.
I have heard that brace (originally came with one) is not an essential part, and it's better to use plain balls and take the brace out.

How significant is the difference, in terms of durability, resistance, convinience, etc?

Thank you for any shared information.

What's a brace bearing?

Im trying to find a picture...
it's a perforator that hold the balls together

Here it is.
http://www.angelfire.com/linux/mikhail2/D0001.jpg

I vote for ball-bearings only. The "brace" or "retainer" can get run over by the balls and wreak havoc, if the bottom bracket gets loose on a long ride. So if you're planning to ride across Canada... yeah. An ounce of prevention.

Originally posted by mechBgon
I vote for ball-bearings only. The "brace" or "retainer" can get run over by the balls and wreak havoc, if the bottom bracket gets loose on a long ride. So if you're planning to ride across Canada... yeah. An ounce of prevention.

Thanks.
That's exactly what I was afraid of. I will have to take it apart again, and mess with the retainer... relube it and look for a HUGE wrench :(.

What is the purpose of this retainer in the first place? I assume it's just for convinience, not to loose the balls while removing the bearings...

Retainers seperate the balls and keep them equi-distance from each other. If you do not use a retainer, you may have room for another ball in the race. This is often the case and if the ball will go in freely without shouldering all the balls together tightly, you should use an extra ball. If the room is there and you don't use an extra ball, you could get uneven wear on the axle and races because the balls will seperate into bunches creating gaps.

The retainers are only there so that at the factory the assembly line workers can slam the bottom bracket assemblys together as rapidly as possible. They serve no real purpose other than ease of assembly/disassembly. Go for the loose ball setup with another extra ball to take up the extra space.

-Ryan

I have found that free bearings without the retainers ride smoother and seem to have slightly less resistance.

I always replace retainer systems with loose balls, which more evenly distribute the pressure because there are more (typically 11 per BB cup) of them. I do, however, make an exception for the Tange tapered roller bearing system in the headset of my mountain bike, as I do not know how to make tapered rollers work properly without a retainer.

JohnE; rollers work better than bearings anyway because they spread the load out over a larger surface. So in the case of your tapered roller there is no need to toss the retainer because in general it will work better and longer the bearing kind even with an extra bearing.

Originally posted by John E
I always replace retainer systems with loose balls, which more evenly distribute the pressure because there are more (typically 11 per BB cup) of them. I do, however, make an exception for the Tange tapered roller bearing system in the headset of my mountain bike, as I do not know how to make tapered rollers work properly without a retainer.

roller bearings need thier retainers to work properly.. I have seen roller bearings without thier retainers, but these are for light applications only.. And comes with an assembly, so it is difficult to repack.