Originally Posted by
rogerstg
Functionally, there are a bazillion $20ish headsets with tens of thousands of miles that are still working fine. The headset is probably the least wear prone moving part on a bike.
You've never experienced mountain bike induced indexed steering, I take it
Originally Posted by
Jeff Wills
+1. IMO, cheaper headsets work fine and can be more durable since they're steel as opposed to aluminum.
All of the aluminum headsets I've ever used have had steel races. Aluminum just isn't up to the pounding.
What all of you are forgetting is what got Chris King the reputation it has. When King headset first came out, the competition was just awful. Sure the other headsets were cheap but if you were riding a bike off-roads as I alluded to above, you could blow through from a few to several cheap headsets a year. And, given the nature of the conditions, you were constantly rebuilding loose bearing headsets in an attempt to not blow through several of them a year.
King headsets were first rate because they were sealed and easy to set up and lasted much, much longer than the cheapies. If you have to replace 2 or 3 cheap headsets, that goes a long way towards the cost of the King that you'll basically never have to replace and it will probably outlast the bike it's on.
The Velo Orange headset is probably a quality unit. It looks enough like a King that it should come with a warning about trademark infringement
It's nice and shiny silver. But at least Kings come in various cool colors
I'll keep my Kings (I've got 7 of them
) and pay a premium to support a small US company.