John_V 

I'm not going to quote stats from companies trying to sell their products or from people that think ceramic bearings are a waste of time. I'm posting from personal experience. I've read all the posts and have to wonder just how many of the posters, other than Doge, have actually tried ceramic bearings? I also wonder how many naysayers went and spent $2,000-3,000 on carbon aero wheels to obtain whatever small gain they read about in their advertisements? I've been riding on ceramic bottom bracket and jockey wheel bearings for almost a year and I can tell you there is one hell of a difference between them and the steel Shimano Ultegra BB and jockey wheels I had before. I've read and watched just about every article and video on ceramic bearings and almost all of them compare steel bearings to very expensive bearings from Ceramic Speed. Fortunately, Ceramic Speed is not the only place to buy ceramic bearings. You can purchase Grade 5, 24x37x7mm, Enduro, ceramic (titanium nitrate coated) hybrid bearings for $35.00 each; $45.00 for their Ceramic Zero bearings. That bearing size is used in most bottom brackets. My jockey wheels are also titanium nitrate coated, Grade 5, ceramic bearings from OmniRacer and cost me $49.95/set. If the races are treated with titanium nitrate, the bearings last quite a long time with little to no maintenance.

I'm more of a distance rider than I am a speedster. The difference in the effort that it takes to turn the cranks is, as I mentioned, extremely noticeable. It's almost like pedaling downhill the whole ride. I'm riding on one to two smaller cogs with the same effort as I was with my Ultegra drive train. Weather permitting, I ride 40-60 miles a day, 6 days a week. After most of my rides, my legs feel as if they never turned the crank. We don't have a lot of hills here in Florida but for the ones that we do have, I needed to use my small chain ring with my 28T cog to climb most of them. Since getting the ceramic drive train, I climb the same hills with my large chain ring with about the same effort as I did with steel bearings in the small chain ring. Personally, after riding with ceramic bearings, I would never go back to steel bearings in a drive train on any bike. Take this for what it's worth to you but don't knock ceramic bearings unless you have actually tried them on your bike.