Ceramic Bearings For Road Bike Wheels

Finish line premium grease.

Ceramic bearings for road bike wheels.

Some brands used to spec a 650c wheel on smaller frame sizes and these days some fit slightly larger 650b wheels but the vast majority of modern road bikes use a 700c wheelset. Hybrid means that the balls are made of a ceramic material but the races or rings are made of a hardened steel. Two types of ceramic materials there are two materials that are common. With the exception of one product the entire line of kogel bearings runs on hybrid ceramic bearings.

I take apart the hub clean all the parts install new ball bearings repack the races wit. The wheels come ready to ride as a tubeless application out of the box with pre installed rim tape and valves and freehub spacers. Finish line premium grease is a versatile teflon based grease specifically designed for bicycle bearings. Think of your wheel bearings.

A tiny percentage reduction in friction here can equate to a worthwhile power saving but when you re only turning at 300 rpm as you do on a bicycle a small percentage increase in efficiency will make a negligible change to your power output. Kogel bearings offers ceramic wheel bearings for any wheelset. I show how to overhaul a cup and cone hub on a rear bicycle wheel. That makes upgrading to ceramic bearings a serious investment fine for a professional cycling team less so for a privateer racer.

They ceramic bearings do run with less friction which offers a significant advantage in industrial applications running at 20 000 rpm. The hubs can be optioned with ceramic kogel bearings on request. They are always under load and always moving. To make things easy we have made a flat fee pricing for a set of four front and rear hub but without freehub or six a complete wheelset including the freehub.

The folks at enduro bearings argue that for bicycles the materials are far more important than abec ratings and that for most applications abec 3 and 5 are appropriate for all things bicycle. Fitting ceramic bearings on your bike may be a bit like fitting a formula one gearbox in your ford fiesta and expecting it to perform as well after 100 000 miles.