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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 18,112
Bikes: Stewart S&S coupled sport tourer, Stewart Sunday light, Stewart Commuting, Stewart Touring, Co Motion Tandem, Stewart 3-Spd, Stewart Track, Fuji Finest, Mongoose Tomac ATB, GT Bravado ATB, JCP Folder, Stewart 650B ATB
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The risk of riding worn parts is that they wear more. The failure mode for cones/bearings is pretty slow and non catastrophic. Some ride well used up axle bearings until the play is so bad it interferes with safe bike handling. Your threshold of tolerance isn't known by us.
To add to your posting- Worn and/or overly tight hub bearings are a far less factor to speed then most think. The bearing friction is such a tiny component of total friction of a bike's ride that many times bearing friction is still a tiny part of the total. Perhaps the change of the bike's feel has you misdirecting reasons why. Andy