bobwysiwyg

Don't how I missed this in the past, but decided to replace studded 40mm tires on my gravel bike with somewhat smoother tread 38 mm Schwalbe Marathons. After wrapping up the job, moved the bars left, then right and noticed what felt like a spot of very mild resistance. Turned out to be, or seemed like a decent that always lined up with center, straight ahead. Is this common, or do I have an issue to investigate?

FBOATSB 

Your headset is indexing. This link has five Bikeforums threads and two Sheldon Brown articles. Best of luck.

brinnelled headset - Bing

bobwysiwyg

So this IS a problem?? Why would it suddenly show up now with a tire change?

FBOATSB 

1. Yes it is a problem, but not a disaster. Headsets are relatively inexpensive and easy to change. And depending on what kind of headset you have can even be made to last a lot longer without a complete change. (I E, loose balls)

2.Not caused by your tire change, but has probably just been waiting to present itself. In fact you can still ride it til it's fixed, just don't ride no handed.

3. Read up on the subject and you will see how easy it is to fix, or you can start a thread in the mechanics forum for more info.

I should have added this link also. You have some reading to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinelling

bobwysiwyg

Thanks, no worries about me riding no hands. Thanks for the link. Odd, bike is relatively new, perhaps a 1,000 mi. on her.

CliffordK

1000 miles sounds like pretty quick wear.

I wonder if the damage occurs due to riding a loose headset.

If your headset has loose (caged) bearings, then open it up and have a look inside. Crown races can be replaced.

See suggestions to replace bearing cages with loose bearings.

bobwysiwyg

So, anyway, since some of the mechanical technology has changed since my youth , I took it to my favorite LBS in Chelsea (Aberdeen) and explained what was going on. The tech understood right away and explain it to me. Thought sure I would be dropping it there, he started taking the headset apart inviting me into the work area so he could show me. He re-oriented the bearing set, re-torqued everything and said it was a temp fix to, hopefully, get me through the balance of the warm weather riding. I'll bring it back in winter for them to remove, measure and replace the bearings. No charge by the way, great place.

FBinNY 

To the OP.

Feel free to totally disregard the "problem" (for now)

It's a normal and typical wear pattern for headsets, and you only noticed it now, because this is the first time in a while that you sort of looked for it. This is a progressive process, but can take a very long while to reach the point where it affects riding. So feel free to disregard it until/unless you can feel it when riding --- it will feel like a stiff headset and make handling sort of jerky.

Since there's no real cure (though you can mask the problem for a while) the only real remedy is a new headset, so you risk nothing by putting that off a while. BITD before folks got obsessive about bicycles, we rode fretted (false brinelled) headsets so bad that the whole frame would vibrate when the fork snapped into place. We used to tell newbs that some idiot must have installed a special cyclocross headset intended to keep the handlebars from swinging around into their heads when you carried the bike.

My personal rule for deciding when it was time was when riding no hands became harder because I had to overcompensate the lean to force the fork out of the groove.

BTW - here's some more to the point reading on the subject (warning, can be a bit technical)

bobwysiwyg

I hear ya. Rode today and I did notice a difference. It went unnoticed before, in part, because my bike had 40mm knobby tires. I just switched them over to 38mm Schwalbe Marathons with a smoother central tread. Noticed it right away. Seems fine now with the "fix" but I tend to be anal about some things, so may get it fixed this winter or, learn to fix it myself. Measuring the bearing properly might be my challenge though.

P. S. Thanks for the link.