Impressive - FSA Ceramic BB
 

Two years ago I purchased some "off brand" ceramic bearings in a shimano ultegra BB. well after about 2000 miles the bearings were shot. I noticed an increase in friction and effort required to power the wheel, mostly when off the bike doing chain cleaning or tuning the derailures. So I took off the crank and one of the bearings was shreaded, I could feel it was lumpy like the balls had chipped and the other was smooth but felt like it was seized, very difficult to turn. So I put in my old Dura-Ace BB and noticed a big difference and have been running that since the start of spring. it's a smooth BB but by no means low friction.

So last week I found a great deal on a new FSA Mega EXO ceramic BB for $120 and gave it a shot. And All I can say is that I'm blown away. there is an absolute measurable improvement and this single upgrade will make you faster, probably more then a wheel upgrade (guessing here) the bearings are smooth as silk and are near zero friction. To give you an idea of how low the frinction on my drivetrain is now. I can set my crank to 9 o'clock and then take a small 1/2inch socket and rest it on the pedal and the crank drops to 7 o'clock while turning the wheel. I can take my finger and flick the spoke of the wheel and it complete a 1/2 turn of the wheel and crank.

This is a true upgrade. I've only taken it out twice for about 80K of ride and I definitly feel faster especially on the sprints. I can't say for sure of it's impact due to all the other variables... but WOW, I'm impressed.

FSA I think claims 3-4 seconds improvement on a 100K race... I'd say it's far more then that. So if your BB is old or has friction, this is a worthwhile upgrade at a relativly low cost for return.. I think you can find these for $180 - $200 street price while the Shimano Dura-Aces are $60. so it's more, but not outrageous.

Anyone else have similar experince?

I am upgrading my Record cranks with ceramic bearings...

I purchased VCRC bearings...

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-VCRC-Ceramic...QQcmdZViewItem

Which brand did you get that failed so quick...


I hope to see the same improvement...

Then will it force me to get hub upgrades...

Meh, my 20 year old D/A pulley wheels have ceramic. BFD.

You know... I've heard that ceramic BB is a scam... but this is like the third or fourth real person testimonial that swears they are legitimate. I've beginning to believe the hype. Just may pick one up. Thanks!

Why believe mere data when you can have the placebo effect, after all?

I heard it is under 4 watts savings...

Zipp makes a big deal out of the 1/2 watt savings their hubs provide.

^^^
That sounds about right. There is no logical reason why it would be more than that. All you are doing is increasing the tolerance of the ball bearing a bit, and using a lighter grease. Ceramic bearings have use in applications that are either: high load, high speed, or high shaft tolerance. A bicycle BB has none of these needs.

When you spin the crank slowly on the work stand, all you are seeing is that the lubricating grease is lighter, and the seals on the bearings are looser. This loses all meaning once you are putting a lot of torque on the crank at speed. 200rpm is a pittance when talking about the world of ball bearings. These things are made to run at thousands of rpms in motor applications and the bicycle application kinda just hitches a ride on that infrastructure.

The only legitimate reason why you might get ceramic bearings is that they might last longer than steel ball bearings because the ceramic is harder than steel. In the bottom bracket application, other than the lifetime, there are no performance advantages to be gained by running ceramic ball bearings.

The effect you are feeling in sprints and stuff is, unfortunately, just a placebo effect. If someone snuck into your house tonight and switched your bearings out to be steel, you'd not even notice it.

smooth BB!

http://www.chainedrevolution.com/ima...kx/pino_bb.wmv

^^^
Yea... my old, worn out, steel bearing, Campy BB (Veloce quality) from 1998 more or less did that too. BTW, I'm trying to figure out why the crank would "settle" into an "arms level" position. I think your crank spider is offset a little.

Believe it. I think the OP probably put too much side-loading on the bearings by over-tightening the cranks.

I have the ABI bearings in my BB and they are simply amazing. The materials engineer at my office drooled over one for a couple of days before slicing it in half (took the reciprocating micro-saw all weekend to cut through the 67+ hardness races) and examining the balls under the electron microscope.

Wow... just wow...

edit: Brian, there is merit to using ceramics. It may not be much, but there is certainly much less friction in a ceramic than in a steel - by a little better than an order of magnitude. I agree that the bearing lifetime argument is more profound, but there is certainly some degree of energy savings in the ceramic application.

His balls were that small, eh? :innocent:

Brian, good info. and your probably right. but keep in mind I'm a weakling so any bit helps :)

In all seriousness, both my old BBs were really stiff. so stiff that throwing the crank as hard as I could while in the worstand it would only complete 1 to 1.5 rotations when going against the hub (ticks not wheel spin) Now It goes around 5-7 times while spinnin the wheel.

Another example, when the bike is on the ground I rotate the crank with one while kneeling next to the bike, and hold the seatpost with the otherhand to balance the bike... on the old BB It would be a fight between the two hands and the bike would usually tip over. with the new ceramics it spins freely and I can keep the bike steady with a finger.

It does make sense that as I approach 90 rpm that the friction is a moot point... So thanks for raining on my ride! jk :)

There are worse things to throw money at.

could be the hub on your rear wheel if you're gauging it with your chain on...

Ceramic BB bearings are great! Long live Red!

lolz, ceramic bearings make your sprint faster??? who believes this ****...

you will be faster if you shave your mustache.

this again

My wife gave me the Enduro Ceramics for Xmas. Felt better to me but I don't know if it's faster.

The placebo effect is great!

The old school internal bearing square taper BB was pretty smooth. When things went to external bearings, the friction actually went up.

I never heard anyone saying darn, these friggin external bearing bb's have so much drag its slowing me down.

Now external bearing BB's with ceramic bearings get you about back to where things were with internal bearing square taper steel bearing BB's. And suddenly the ceramic bearings are dramatically increasing speed?

By the way, the data behind this post IIRC comes from some Zinn testing in Velonews.

EDIT: Did a search for the Zinn data, and only found a few other references from others who also read the article in the magazine. Apparently, it wasn't in Velonews' on line content. (or I'm overlooking it in a quick search.)

When the industry went to external bearings, they started using industry standard, sealed, cartridge bearings. Because of the bigger diameter, the seal drag is proportionally increased, which makes it look like the bearings don't rotate as smoothly as the old cartridge BBs. But it's just seal drag. When you are turning the crank slowly, the seals create, say, 'x' N-m of torque. Because you are rotating the cranks with your hand on a workstand, 'x' N-m is a relatively large proportion of the total torque on the crank. But when you are stomping on the pedals, the seals still only exert 'x' amount of torque, but the total amount of torque on the crank is now 100 times larger, so the percentage of the total torque that 'x' exerts on the crank is now 100 times smaller.

Say seal drag was 10% of the torque on the crank when you spin the crankarms on the workstand. When you are pedaling, that same seal drag is now only 0.1% of the total torque because the actual number stayed the same while the total torque on the crank increased 100 fold. Spinning the cranks on the workstand is a poor measure of bearing drag.

So, all this talk about lower friction in ceramic bearings is just because of better seals which drag less so the cranks rotate more freely on the workstand. The only benefit ceramic bearings have is in increased wear life, because the ceramic balls are harder than any contaminants that might get into the bearings, and they will not pit and become egg shaped over time like steel bearings will. If that's worth going from a $20 bearing set to a $200 bearing set, then more power to you.

"percentage of the total torque that 'x' exerts on the crank is now 100 times smaller"

Yes, but it's still 'x'. It doesn't really matter what the % of total torque is. What matters is the difference in work required. The work required to rotate the crank one revolution on the stand is no different than the work required to rotate the crank one revolution on the road. Integrate that over a long ride and see how much extra work you have to do. To some people, that is worth the expense. To pro riders in a big stage race, that is certainly worth the expense, even if it is only in the kJ range.

First off, this is seal drag I am talking about; has nothing to do with bearings. I have an old, worn out cartridge bearing (from a formula hub; destroyed by setting my chain tension too high on my fixed gear) sitting on my desk at work with rough, pitted bearings (but no seal) that will easily cause something as massive as a crankset to spin forever on the work stand. Pay a bit more for better sealed steel ball bearings, and you'll get the same benefits. Ceramic bearings come with good seals because the market is the type of people who will pay the premium for all this stuff, and part of the marketing appeal of ceramic bearings is that they roll forever on the work stand. On the other hand, the bearings that come standard in bottom brackets are basically the same bearings you can get out of the McMaster Carr catalogue, which are sealed up tighter because they are designed to roll at thousands of rpms under torque, not at 100 rpm with zero torque applied.

Second, if 'x' is 0.1% of the torque on the crank, it matters not a bit. It is probably less of an effect than the increase in fluid drag from the grease in the bearings that you encounter when it's cold out vs. riding in 90 degree weather. Pros ride them because they have these products thrown at them by sponsers, though maybe the younger ones are spurred on by the placebeo effect benefits. Hey, if you think you should climb faster because of your equipment, you have a vested interest in proving your thinking right, and if this psycological factor makes you faster, then so much the better.