Another key initiative for Full Speed Ahead is the introduction of ceramic bearings.

For the last few years, Full Speed Ahead has been working with their extensive array of sponsored teams to test, improve, and refine an often neglected product that can provide significant performance advantages. FSA's Claudio Marra explained to Cyclingnews that "our testing shows that ceramic ball bearings are 20% more rigid, 10X rounder and 60% lighter than standard steel ball bearings, which reduces friction. We have found that using ceramic ball bearings can provide speed increases of up to 4%, or a forty meters distance gained over every kilometer."

FSA's ceramic bearings are not actually ceramic; they are made from pure, solid silicon nitride balls that are mounted in hi-spec carbon steel bearing raceways. To make them, the manufacturing process is long (70 days), complex and expensive. "First off, the ceramic powder is synthesized and pre-treated. Then the silicon nitride material is stamped into spheres, sintered, then specially ground and worked into a perfectly round shape before final assembly." But the cost is worth is, as Marra points out, the performance advantages and longevity (ceramic bearings outlast steel bearings by 5-20X) are real. Marra then explained that "we combine these ceramic bearings with super low-friction seals and a special lubricant in an optimized system; the advantages are hard to see with the naked eye, but you can tell on the bike."

Ceramic bearing kits are offered for FSA's own products, like the MegaExo crankset and RD-400/488/600/800 wheel series but also for many other brands of bicycle components.

FSA's Doug Stuart told us that "our ceramic bearings are a big breakthrough so we decided to make them for brands like Mavic, Zipp, Spinergy, Campagnolo Shimano and even Lightweight carbon wheels. Plus we offer ceramic bearings for Campagnolo Record and Chorus bottom brackets and even derailleur pulleys."

FSA is also busy creating a focused range of high-performance wheels that are designed and built as an integrated system. Perhaps they haven't received the attention they deserve but, like other top FSA products, they benefit from advanced materials and relentless attention to detail. FSA's top of the range wheelset for 2006 is the RD-488. This wheel is a real racing weapon, with a 50mm carbon fiber tubular rim laced to 20 spokes in front and 24 in back. FSA's RD488 wheels don't have just any old aero spoke, but custom drawn Wheelsmith AE-14 spokes. FSA specially designed these spokes to have not only a fast aero profile, but to also to absorb road vibration.