Originally Posted by
MChristenson
What happens if somebody were to replace the steel bearings with high grade equivalent ceramic bearings?
First, welcome to the forum and, no, it's not a dumb question.
The brief answer to your question is that ceramic bearings are a tremendously expensive answer to a question nearly nobody asked. They do reduce friction in components with nearly no friction to begin with and do it at great cost. The Pros use them because their sponsors are paying for them but the real advantage even to them is almost zero.
As a tourist, keep your hubs and bottom bracket clean, well lubed and properly adjusted and use good quality steel bearings. You will never ever see any advantage to ceramic bearings over good quality steel ones but your wallet will thank you.
And, yes. loose balls instead of retainer held balls are slightly better since a few more balls will fit in the race and share the load over more bearings. Here, the cost penalty is about zero.