As part of my wheel building business I also do service on hubs. Most hubs today are the cartridge bearing type. While I’ve got the hub its easy work for me to pop out the old bearings and press in new ones. I typically get new bearings from a local bearing supplier. These guys know bearings. Materials, life expectancy, seals, friction… Everything that turns has bearings and these guys have all of them.
On my last trip to the bearing shop I got to chatting with the salesman about the different bearing materials and how steel compares to ceramic. These are the two bearings most common to hubs. In this salesman’s opinion the real advantage of ceramic is their ability to dissipate heat better than steel. His comment was something along the lines of unless a bicycle is going 100mph ceramic bearing won’t make a difference because there just isn’t enough heat built up to make them advantageous. Huuuu. This is the second anti-ceramic bearing comment I’ve heard from a bearing guy. The first one was from another bearing supplier who said bicycles were pretty much the wrong application of ceramic bearings. His explanation was ceramics are glass so while it’s a smooth surface which is great for rolling on it’s also fragile. In a bicycle wheel for example any impact bigger than a curb breaks that glass.
These are two comments from the bearing experts. I rebuild all kinds of bicycle hubs as part of my wheel building services. I am always looking for better ways to do my servicing. People from other indystries can be great resources.