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Ceramic vs steel bearing BB

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Old 04-03-14, 02:56 AM
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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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Old 04-03-14, 03:16 AM
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Yes.
In price there is.
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Old 04-03-14, 03:48 AM
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Save your money
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Old 04-03-14, 04:11 AM
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I thought the ceramic fad had died out.
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Old 04-03-14, 06:49 AM
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If you sensible choose steel, make sure it is stainless. There is a real advantage to that.
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Old 04-03-14, 08:40 AM
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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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Old 04-03-14, 09:05 AM
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Originally Posted by Homebrew01
I thought the ceramic fad had died out.
The manufacturers still have some stock to clear.
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Old 04-03-14, 09:06 AM
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Originally Posted by thump55
Switching to ceramic bearings not only made me faster, but it made my girlfriend hotter and lowered my cholesterol.
Let's see that girlfriend so we can make an accurate determination if ceramics are worthwhile.
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Old 04-03-14, 11:16 AM
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Originally Posted by canam73
Let's see that girlfriend so we can make an accurate determination if ceramics are worthwhile.
C'mon now. I didn't ask you for pics when you were posting in the "Why Does My Taint Hurt?" thread.
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Old 04-03-14, 11:17 AM
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Originally Posted by canam73
Let's see that girlfriend so we can make an accurate determination if ceramics are worthwhile.
+1
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Old 04-03-14, 11:36 AM
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Originally Posted by thump55
C'mon now. I didn't ask you for pics when you were posting in the "Why Does My Taint Hurt?" thread.
Did I post in one of those? I'll get pics.
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Old 04-03-14, 12:05 PM
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One of them wins races
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Old 04-03-14, 12:41 PM
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Originally Posted by Elvo
One of them wins races
you forgot the sarcasm emoticon
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Old 04-03-14, 01:43 PM
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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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Old 04-03-14, 04:30 PM
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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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Old 04-04-14, 08:24 AM
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Originally Posted by back4more
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.
Cough, cough, bullsh*t, cough.

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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Old 04-04-14, 08:28 AM
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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.
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