bashermax 

NO! This isn't a Commando, Boxer or Brief thread. The balls I'm, referring to are of the BEARING type. I've noticed that manufacturers are trending toward Sealed bearings in all kinds of applications, but frankly I'm an old Cup and cone kinda guy.

PROS:
* Theoretically, a sealed bearing resists moisture/debris entry to keep the inner working, working. In reality, at the same time it seals IN any thing that makes it's way past the seal (Which will inevitably happen.)
* If you relish a throw-away society, you $#!t can the old one and press a new on in place.
* What it reduces, is the total cost of machining on the bike frame or bracket. Since the bearing parts are internal, bike manufacturers don't have to worry as much about tolerances and hardness of cup/cone assemblies. The "hole" just has to fit the bearing
* It caters to MORONS who just don't know how to properly inspect, adjust and maintain a free bearing. No offense to anyone (This is the part where I'm about to offend someone... if not everyone), There are a lot of bike RIDERS, who are NOT the best Bike maintainers.

CONS:
* IMHO sealed bearings are "stiff". I know that they SHOULD loosen up in time, but they still offer more resistance than a "free" set of bearings. AS a kid I remember being proud of Spinning a wheel/pedal/BB (Even a headset) and seeing just how long it could spin. If I'm supplying the effort, shouldn't I get the most bang for the buck?
* No maintenance = No maintenance. Uh, I LIKE to do maintenance on my bike(S). I WANT to know whats going on inside a bearing surface. Wear is usually easy to spot and replacing 1-2 or a few balls is easy. I don't want to get lulled into a false sense of security by believing that "Sealed" is really Sealed.

Give us YOUR $.02

reptilezs

i prefer a cup and cone hub. generally xtr/dura ace or xt/ultegra. good sealing as well as bearings. campy hubs are good and well sealed as well, wish they used bigger balls but they are nice.

Grand Bois

The best bike maintainers replace all of the balls, not 1-2 or a few.

Duane Behrens

STEEL FRAME REAR HUBS. Replaced the (loose) bearings on the rear hub assembly of an '80 Nishiki road bike. Read the Park manual first and watched a couple of videos. The first one recommended removing and installing new bearings with the end (dust) caps in place. That was extremely difficult and time consuming, or maybe I just didn't have the right tool. Frustrated, I cast around for a bit more advice and found a video in which the mechanic casually REMOVED the end caps, cleaned the housing, applied grease, re-installed the bearings and replaced the end caps. HAH!, I thought - THAT's the ticket! So I did that, and yes it worked great . . . . but the dust caps are no longer such a tight fit as they were originally. That bothers me and I may end up looking for new dust caps, avoiding wet riding in the meantime.

STEEL FRAME, HEADSET: With the caged headset bearings, I've read a few stories in which the owner installed the caged bearings BACKWARDS (with the back of the cage against the bearing cup). Unfortunately, the bike will actually operate this way, just not very well. So be careful, or simply replace the caged with loose - it's easy, and you'll be rewarded with a smoother-operating component.

CRANKS, STEEL FRAME. I've now replaced caged bearings with loose bearings on two steel frames. It was dead easy and I like the result. Highly recommended.

CRANKS, CARBON FRAME. I have two newer bikes, both of which run Shimano Hollowtech II crank systems with sealed (not caged), threaded bearing/cup assembly. Incredibly easy to remove and replace - you just unscrew them off the end of the bottom bracket. Riding about 100 miles a week, I replaced mine after 4 years, not because they made any noise - I just figured it was time.

SUMMARY. Loose? Caged? Sealed? Pressed in? Loose is a fiddle but provides the smoothest operation if done correctly. Caged work almost as well, just be careful with their orientation. Sealed bearing/cup assemblies (Hollowtech II)? Friggin' AWESOME, but limited to bike frames engineered for that system.

I guess there is a new type of sealed BB bearing that is pressed (not threaded) into the BB housing. I know nothing about them. DB

RoadTire 

The part that bothers me is even though the sealed bearings arent, I can't run new grease into them, but water and fine grit can.

rydabent

The fact is that for most cyclist that are not good at maintence "sealed" bearings are a better deal.

hockeyref

Over the years I have cleaned and re-greased many "sealed bearings". I just pulled the inside seal, cleaned\flushed the old gunk out, repacked with Phil Woods and replaced the seal.

cyccommute 

To begin with, I believe what you mean by "sealed" bearings are cartridge bearings. Shimano "seals" it's cup and cone bearings with rubber seals and labyrinth seals against dirt and water infiltration. But those are different from cartridge bearings.

Cartridge bearings can come in a variety of seals for a variety of applications. There are waterproof cartridge bearings that are meant for duty in submersible pumps (Phil Wood uses these kind) that are commonly used. Now these may, eventually, get water in them but that's going to something that the cockroach who inherits the earth and my bike will have to deal with. There are also lesser grades which are still sealed well enough that they are being used on automobiles and provide maintenance free service for more miles than I will ever put on a bicycle.

Sealed bearings, like Shimano contact seals, don't rise to the level of "sealing" as either of those cartridge bearings. They are pretty good but not that good. That's why you have to repack cup and cone bearings all the time.

...after 10s of thousands of miles. On the other hand, if you manage to damage a cup in a cup and cone hub...it's difficult but not impossible...you have to throw away the whole wheel. A cartridge bearing that lasts roughly forever, is more economical in the long run. Add to that the availability of cones for various hubs, especially ones made by Shimano. There are perfectly serviceable Shimano hubs made into wheels that have to be thrown away because Shimano changed the design and you can't find replacement cones. Talk about a "throw-away society".

Sure it does I can buy a 2013 Sora Shimano front hub for $13. The cheapest new (i.e. not old stock) cartridge bearing hub I could find on Google was a bolt on Origin 8 front hub for $25. If I want a hub with a quick release for a road bike like the Sora, the cheapest one I could find was an American Classic for $117. There are some disc hubs and through axle hubs for $70 to $80 but those aren't really aren't for the same application as the Sora. Ifthe cartridge bearing hub is so cheap to make, as you posit, why aren't they the cheapest hubs you can find?

Now you are just being a stupid troll. I know how to inspect, adjust, pack, rebuild and maintain a cup and cone bearing. I also know that they aren't sealed that well, tend to get contaminated with dirt, pit the cones easily and really aren't all that easy to adjust so that they are "perfect"...especially when used with a quick release. I choose not to use cup and cone because I have better things to do with my time than tear down a hub on an annual basis for light duty. If you use cup and cone, especially ones that don't have good contact seals, for off-road riding in dusty or wet or winter conditions, you are tearing down the hubs on a weekly basis. Sometimes after each ride. I'd rather not. With a sealed cartridge unit, I don't have to.

If you are so enamored of cup and cone, do you still use them in your bottom bracket? In your headset? If not, why not since they are sooooooo much better?


That's just your opinion. In my experience, cartridge bearings have no more drag than cup and cone systems that have been properly adjusted. The rub is that the cup and cone have to be properly adjusted. I can adjust a cup and cone bearing so that it seems to spin forever in my hand but it would be too loose to use in a wheel. Being able to spin for a long time is no indication of a properly adjusted cup and cone hub when installed on the bike.

Get a little dirt into a hub that really is properly adjusted for riding and all that "proper adjustment" goes out the window. Even the sealing that Shimano does pales in comparison to "cheap" cartridge bearings.

You are fooling yourself if you think that you can spot damage on individual ball bearings and replace them individually. If you have enough wear to be noticeable on one ball bearing, the rest of them are damaged as well. Talk about being "lulled into a false sense of security".

I have ruined more cup and cone hubs (as well as loose bearing bottom brackets and loose bearing headsets) than I can count in the early days of mountain biking. I've had dozens of them. I've also had 10 cartridge bearing hubs or hubsets (not to mention cartridge bearing BB and headsets) between 1984 and present. I've only had a single cartridge bearing failure. That's not a hub but a single bearing, i.e. one side. One of my cartridge bearing hubs has been in service on a mountain bike for 16 years with the OEM bearings. It's still going strong and I suspect that it will be for years to come.

cyccommute 

Herein lies the problem with many "sealed" loose bearing hubs. Yes, you can remove the dust cap but often, you damage the cap in the process. Once damaged the dust cap becomes even more ineffective...not that it was particularly effective in the first place.

Your biggest problem, however, is going to be finding a replacement dust cap. They are hub specific and you probably won't be able to find one. Especially not one for a bike that is 35 years old. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but them's the facts. On the plus side, the dust caps on a 1980s hub were mostly cosmetic anyway so you don't have to worry that much. Ride and repack the bearings often until you get tired of repacking bearings 4 to 8 to 12 times a years (depending on how wet your ride is, of course.)

Cup and cone bottom brackets from the '80s share many of the same problems as cup and cone hubs of that vintage. The seals...well, there aren't any. The grease is the seal and it does a very lousy job. Some bikes of that era even have holes cut in the bottom bracket to provide an escape for water that infiltrates the grease. As will sealed cartridge bearing hubs, the sealed cartridge bearing BB solve lots and lots of problems for bikes of that era. You won't notice the BB and you won't have to rebuild it all the time. Again, I've had lots and lots and lots of loose bearing BB fail but I have yet to have a cartridge unit fail on me.

Some people complain about the external bottom bracket bearings failing but, as with the internal cartridge bearing BB, I have yet to experience a failure. I've got them on mountain bikes and road bikes with some of the units having seen 10,000 miles of service and never had a problem.

The problem with loose bearings is the "done correctly" part. And how clean you can keep them. Dirt that tears up bearings and pits cones plays havoc on the smoothness of the bearing. Sealed units stay cleaner longer (much, much longer) so they stay smoother over time.

Finally, you can retrofit an external bottom bracket to any bike you like. The bikes don't have to be designed for them. They simply thread into the same BB shell.

fietsbob

Rohloff uses a mix of needle and ball bearings , the oil seal is on the outside .. of the hub.

Bulls Eye and Phil Freewheel hubs with replaceable cartridge bearings .

70's Campagnolo , loose ball cup and cone .. Shimano uses likewise, even now ..

sturmey archer uses balls in retainers ..

they make the choices , we buy the parts after the engineering is done.

HillRider

Didn't we just have this exact discussion a week or so ago? To quote Yogi Berra, "it's deja vu all over again."

davidad

The seals can be removed carefully and the bearings cleaned and greased.

Vintage_Cyclist

Surprising lack of jocularity...

Dave Mayer

Mid-range Shimano hubs that use loose balls are sealed about as well as any other hub I can think of.

The cartridge bearing hubs I have owned had the worst seals. The thin rubber air-dam that is the feature of cartridge bearings is totally inadequate to keep out water. This design does more to keep bearing-killing water in as out.

This issue has been beat to death. An off-the-shelf set of LX or 105 hubs are functionally as good as any hub you can buy at any price. Dura-Ace/XTR will get you some weight savings with the titanium freehub and alloy axle, but they are not any stronger or better sealed.

Boutique hubs with cartridge bearings gets you an inferior design, less servicability, at a lot higher cost.

nymtber

I stick to cup and cone. Why? Because they have been in use for MANY years on bicycles. I've re-packed quite a number of older hubs, and every single one spun like it was new afterwards. Loose balls are cheaper than a cartridge bearing, and quite honestly easier to replace. Especially shimano, every bike shops that is worth walking into has loose ball bearings for shimano hubs

Do cartridge bearings work well? Of course! Are they worth it, to me? No. And like a few others have mentioned, I enjoy servicing my bicycle. I live in NY, and during the winter looking at my bicycle is torture...so If I can work on it, I'm a little happier

Amesja

Sealed bearings aren't. At least not against water infiltration.

The term comes from the motor industry where "sealed bearings" are designed to keep air from flowing through them. Since electric motors are air cooled they are made to suck in air as they spin, right past the bearings on their end. "Sealed" bearings were designed so that air (and all the filth that is floating in it) would not be sucked through the motor bearings as it pulls cooling air in.

Jobs Brandt has discussed this at length in many forums, websites, and blog posts.

Bicycle bearings just will not keep water out -at least not for long. Labryinth seals help a little, but water is getting in sooner or later.

I like cartridge bearings and I like the rubber seals that help a little to keep the grease cleaner, but they do need maintenance and the dust shields should be pulled if they aren't the metal type that can't be. I also enjoy the thrill of having the right tools to press old worn cartridge bearings out and then press new ones in. It takes a few more tools to do this than work on plain cup and ball bearing systems.

Plimogz

I like the fact that I can ride cartridges past the point where I know that the bearing needs servicing without risking destroying the entire hub or bottom bracket. I also like that, with cartridge bearing sizes being quite standardized, I can buy a known well-sealed bearing and swap it into a otherwise good product which came with crappy cartridges.

I find loose ball bearings more fun to maintain, but only when I have the time. And then only on something that was designed with good quality seals in the first place -- which shockingly few are. Both of which lead me to appreciate being able to calmly ride a crunchy cartridge, if need be, without thinking about how I'm probably destroying my hub at the same time.

That said, I'm of the opinion that the 'screw the cost' & 'nevermind the servicing' performance advantage lies with loose balls; on account of the space lost in cartridge designs. But then again, I believe that this avenue leads to a regiment of daily oiling of bearings and of weighing components down to the gram -- so not my thing, by any means.

Mr. Fly

I've seen this quote many times but Google searches for submersible pump bearings or similar do not show any hits that are similar to what cartridge bearing seals are. It is interesting that a lot of the hits actually refer back to Phil Wood bearings quoting Phil Wood literature. A deeper investigation revealed that a lot of the industrial sealing solutions have additional seals that appear to be quite complex in design when compared to the rubber lipped seals on cartridge bearings. (ref: SKF's website) These solutions do not rely solely on the one rubber seal per side on a cartridge bearing. Actually, even Phil Wood sell a metal shield for their BBs now.

Are you taking Phil Wood at their word that these are waterproof or do you have other independent information collaborating to this?

xenologer

if you're fastidious enough to pry open the seals on cartridge bearings for clean/relube.
then you're better off with loose ball,
same maintenance but the ball bearings will be larger, gaining better load capacity/longer wearing

Amesja

You don't need to be fastidious to replace the cartridge bearings on external BB cups. It's under $15 for better quality Enduro bearings than come in all but the best OEM BB's or you can go hog wild and spend $65 and get ceramic -WAY cheaper than buying ceramic BB's.

You will either need a one time purchase of the X-tool kit from Enduro for about a hundred bucks or have a pretty good automotive bearing removal/press tool kit already.

cyccommute 

Think of how a submersible pump works. Not industrial pumps but small sump pumps. The pump has an impeller that rides on a bearing that is submerged in the water to be pumped. The pump may not be used for weeks and weeks but the bearing has to sit there in water and not rust or suffer from water washing out the lubricant. Industrial pumps have to have other sealing mechanisms due to the size, speed and load that they have to deal with. Even small pumps see more load than a typical bicyclist is going to put on hub bearings.

Your car (post ~1995) uses similar bearings in various applications for more then 100,000 miles without failing. In fact, auto parts stores are good sources for the replacement bearings for sealed cartridge bearings.

Bicycles bearings don't have to be submerged, don't have to go for 100,000 miles at high speeds, hold up the suspension of a ton of metal or more, etc. All a cartridge bearing has to do is keep out a bit of dirt and some water spray. Considering the vitriol that people are spewing at cartridge bearing hubs, you'd think that these "inferior designs" failed every 3 miles. A cheap cartridge bearing hub is much better sealed than a cheap cup and cone hub. Many of those have no seal against pebbles, much less dust and water. A well sealed cup and cone hub like a Shimano have worse sealing on the drive side...i.e. none...than even a cheap cartridge bearing hub.

As for the bottom bracket, I just have to ask the "cup and cone" crowd (again) do you use cartridge bearing units or the old style BB? Do you sit around an worry that you might not be getting the best performance from those "inferior designed" cartridge bearing bottom brackets? How often do you have to replace the "superior" loose bearing bottom brackets?

Jeez, people. Cartridge bearings work just fine, thank you. You'll find cartridge bearings in thousands of applications in our society. I'm old enough to remember "zerks" and greasing the suspension of my truck every 3000 miles. Thankfully, those days are far behind us and we don't seem to miss them. I feel the same way about cup and cone. They aren't superior, they aren't better, they aren't sealed agains contamination any better than the "inferior designed" cartridge bearing hubs. If you really look at the seals on a current Shimano hub with the large rubber boots that seal the axle and the axle drags on, I doubt that they roll any easier, either. Not that it matters that much. Fractions of a watt, maybe?

Amesja

The amount of seal drag on a truly waterproof shaft seal would be anathema to bicycle use. People complain about the drag of dyno hubs which would be but a fraction of these types of seals -especially if used on both wheels and the bottom bracket.

reptilezs

basically hubs need to have a good design instead of just certain bearings. if using cartridge bearings it should have secondary outer seal and weep hole like a water pump.

Mr. Fly

Despite the lengthy discourse, you've not answered the question.

Are you taking Phil Wood at their word that these are waterproof or do you have other independent information collaborating to this? I'm willing to learn, but right now, it sounds like "just trust me", which is fine and dandy, except for the fact that people have wildly different experiences and maybe we'll get more out of this if we investigate and learn more about seal types.

rydabent

plim +1

You make an excellent point. Since the outer race is usually part of the hub, if it get worn or pitted the whold hub has to be thrown away if using loose balls. Sealed bearing are a unit and they can just be popped out with no damage to the hub.