Upgrade my Headset and Reuse it?
 

I picked up a Surly Cross Check frame on Craig's List that I'm planning to build up as a commuter. I'm thinking about upgrading the headset on my Seven Axiom from a Cane Creek S3 to a Chris King and re-using the Cane Creek headset on the Cross Check. The Seven is only about 7 months old (1500 miles or so). Is it worth it to upgrade to a Chris King, or should I just keep the Cane Creek on the Seven, and install a comparable headset on the Cross Check? They're both 1 1/8".

Ridiculous waste of labour if it was my bike. If you feel strongly about one way or the other than do what pleases you. Otherwise who cares, both are awesome headsets.

I have a Chris King headset on one bike (came as part of a package deal) and FSA and Cane Creek cartridge headsets on a couple of others and I certainly can't tell the difference. The CK is a great headset but at 3X the price of the Cane Creek it should be. You can't go wrong with the CK except for it's huge cost penalty.

Congratulations on the Cross Check. I just built one up as a rain/beater/errand bike and love it so far. It's a tank (32 pounds with the rack and fenders) but a nice ride. I installed a Cane Creek S3 headset on it.

This is what I was wondering given the labor to swap the Cane Creek from the Axiom to the Cross Check, and the premium price of the CK.

your Seven is a VERY nice frame. there is no NEED to upgrade, but if you WANT to upgrade because that is your super bike with all the bling and fancy bits then go ahead. I've got a Chris King on my fancy bike and I'll admit it is more of a color matching status symbol. It tells everyone - "Look at this bike! its my best one! I spent Gobs of money on it! So it makes me such a great cyclist- I even Know it has to have all the best bits"

I've got a FSA orbit II on my other back up bike and a Cane Creek S-8 on my steel framed 29er / commuter. I can't feel any difference when turning any of my bikes. The Chis King is like a little piece of Jewelry for you bike. It is not necessary but it sure looks nice and it works Great.

I find it is like hubs on your wheels - you don't Need high end hubs - a Deore will do and get you there. But If you aren't pinching pennies a higher end hub works a bit better and the engagment is quicker. Plus I like the color of my Hope Hubs and I love how great my Hadley rear hub is on my Mountain bike.

its not hard and shouldn't be very expensive for a shop to move it - $10 is what my shop charged me.

feel free to upgrade if you wanna bling yourself and/or your bike. but a headset that works fine isn't much of a thing to be upgraded where performance is concerned, especially a headset as good as the one you're starting with.
if you do upgrade the Seven, keep the Can Creek and put it on the cross check.

Or just buy another Cane Creek and stick it on the Cross Check, and keep running the current Cane Creek on your Seven. You could hand-paint it with nail polish if you want it to sparkle.

I've got the CK on my all-Campy Litespeed and no one has EVER noticed or commented on it. Beside the owner (and Visa or Mastercard) I wonder how many riders pay attention to what other riders are using. It's a lot like the teenager who is certain "everyone is looking at me". They aren't.

And if they are, it's probably not carefully enough to distinguish between pink sparkly nail polish, and a pink-anodized CK headset :D