Ceramic vs steel bearing BB
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Ceramic vs steel bearing BB
Talking BB. Is there any significant difference between a ceramic bearing version vs steel bearing?
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Save your money
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I thought the ceramic fad had died out.
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Switching to ceramic bearings not only made me faster, but it made my girlfriend hotter and lowered my cholesterol.
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My local shop owner says the bb30 ceramic bearings suck and never last so he cut a deal with a local bearing shop for ss bearings at a lower cost then stock sram. You know what they are awesome and I didn't break the bank buying them....
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I went ceramic and find there is a noticeable difference. Love them and will stick with them. Had them in my old FSA crank and kept them when I switched to the Spider Ring. So sweet.
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Unless your steel bearings were total crap, it's virtually impossible that there's a noticeable difference. The most optimistic data, not from somebody selling ceramic bearings, is that going to a full set of ceramic bearings for the entire bike is worth 1-4 watts at 25mph. (IIRC there was a Velonews test that put it below 1 watt). I highly doubt that you can notice a 1-4 watt difference.
What you can notice is a difference in seal friction when you spin the cranks unloaded. Some bearings have more friction from seals than others. A bearing with lower seal friction will spin faster and longer when you just spin it not under load. But when riding under load a difference in seal friction becomes pretty much irrelevant.
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FWIW,
We've got ceramic bearings in the bottom brackets of our tandem, mostly because tandems put a lot of load on components, and I tried ceramic to see if they'd last longer, than the OEM steel bearings did.
And I've got ceramic bearings on my Wilier's bb, because that's what comes with Red.
I can't begin to say I notice any difference in frictional losses.
We've got ceramic bearings in the bottom brackets of our tandem, mostly because tandems put a lot of load on components, and I tried ceramic to see if they'd last longer, than the OEM steel bearings did.
And I've got ceramic bearings on my Wilier's bb, because that's what comes with Red.
I can't begin to say I notice any difference in frictional losses.
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You could fall off a cliff and die.
You could get lost and die.
You could hit a tree and die.
OR YOU COULD STAY HOME AND FALL OFF THE COUCH AND DIE.
You could fall off a cliff and die.
You could get lost and die.
You could hit a tree and die.
OR YOU COULD STAY HOME AND FALL OFF THE COUCH AND DIE.
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