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Recommended maintenance/mod - headrace bearings

Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 10:48 am
by Crimson
Just a quick note to say I replaced my ball-bearing original type head bearings with tapered roller bearings a couple of days ago, but I only got around to testing the bike today (also replaced the front tyre with a softer one). What a massive difference! It's like night and day...
Bear in mind I only replaced them because there was a slight dead-ahead notch.. That's all you could tell that was amiss, when riding the bike with the original bearings. But they probably had uneven tension side to side as well even though you couldn't tell this from just turning the bars - just little imperfections too small to note but which added up to a huge difference in the way the bike behaved.

But the new tapered roller bearings seem to have the perfect blend of tension and looseness. For the first time, you can actually carry out one-finger steering, and it's extremely easy. The bike still orients straight forward with both hands off the bars at all real-world speeds. Cornering is much, much easier, and requires far less concentration. I used to have slight tension in the shoulders, which I put down to over-tensing on the bars, so I would consciously tell myself to relax my shoulders when riding. But that wasn't the problem...
I would never have guessed that head bearings that were only just slightly shot would have had such a detrimental effect on the way this bike handles. I am convinced that the tapered ones are much better than the ball type. Silky smooth. So I highly recommend doing them, even if you have just the slightest notch in your steering.