Are Ceramic Bearings Overrated? 

but just imagine how well it will zip up and down when you're in space

Made of surgical stainless steel comes to mind. Mindless marketing.

Exactly. NTN or NSK, no plastic cages, top notch tolerances.

Exactly and they don't resist to shocks. And by the way Enduro bearing are shiet.

Not to mention, your bearings won’t meaningfully affect bike speed unless they are defective. Even if they were slightly better, it wouldn’t be enough to matter. Speed is definitely not the issue here, only durability

@@bchearne well stated

Harder always means more fragile. Meaning, they'll be smashed after some time.

@@user-od7hh8qg9d exactly, hard and tough are completely different characteristics. hard=brittle.

True. My SKF bearings in my 2008 Mavic Aksium Race use full-contact seals and they limited my bike to 65 kph on descents. When I tried to lower my aerodynamic profile on the descent I hit that speed on, there was no increment in speed. However, because of that, my bearings are still in good shape.

Fark enve. They wonder why people are turning to Chinese brands (my tubeless rims have no spoke holes and hence no tape required)

I don't Envy you!

Hope has enough sense to use good seals in their BB.

Even standard Hope bottom brackets last forever.

Ceramic is also harder than steel, that's why their bearing races wear out faster than steel bearings.

The thing about hybrid ceramic bearings are that the bearing races wear out faster than those with steel ball bearings because ceramic is much harder than steel on the Mohs hardness scale. They also usually have a larger bearing clearance when compared to a steel counterpart.

This comment should be pinned.

This is the TRUTH.

"i really have no idea what they are talking about in this video" .............nor do they ............😂

@@kevinfrost1579 More TRUTH.

I had steel bearings on my bottom bracket and I was replacing them every three months due to corrosion. Switched to ceramic bearings and this stopped. The bearing was not corroding anymore.

@@jamesmckenzie3532 Sounds like an issue with your seals. I've had a bike that was ridden in all weather and stood outside a lot and no corrosion..

@@Finnspin_unicycles It WAS a Trek after all but the shop said the seals were ok. I also had this issue with a Specialized Roubaix and they have cups external to the bike. Probably because I didn't get them serviced as often as I should have.

Just turn up your volume, smart guy

Not all steel bearings are made equal. Industrial-grade ones are considered an upgrade, such as SKF and NTN among others, since most bearings used on a bicycle and its components are standardised and are not proprietary, such as 6902, 6805, 6806 and so on.

@@yonglingng5640 I've been looking at NTN but cannot tell which ones would fit my wheels or BB.

@@bluemystic7501 Look at the numbers on your bearings, usually four digits, that will be the bearing sizes you need.

"best" is quite a broad concept

At least one video (with the Silca guy?) was saying that the hard chromed models (X01 and above) last many times longer than the lesser models.

Thank you. I did see another as well , saying the same thing . Im learning @@ericpmoss

Save your money. Lube it once In a while, and when the CC-4 says it's worn, replace it. Chain religion sucks.

Thank you. I am learning !@@davidburgess741

In the case of a PressFit bottom bracket, angular alignment plays a role too. That's why one-piece BBs with steel bearings can spin smoothly as the angular alignment between the two bearings is already perfect.

Jet engines are the main usage.

The Chris King ceramic bearings are very durable. Best durability in the market.

@@diehardbikes Have you got any evidence for that?

@LongbranchOlivetti I used to work for Chris King, first off, so I know that company. Secondly, our bearings being the strongest, hardest, and some of the fastest, as well as the best tolerances on the market is literally what we are known for. But specifically we are known for how good our bearings are. Our ball bearings are all made in house, and are hardened in house. Again, the more we have control over that, the better, because we can make the best possible product. Literally you are asking for evidence of what Chris King is known for. You want the evidence? Go look it up. We are legendary in that realm. I no longer work for Chris King, but I know a good quality product when I see one. I've bought products from BB infinite, Wheels Manufacturing, even Ceramicspeed- none have impressed as much as the Chris King bearings. Fun fact for you: you can run Chris King bearings completely dry: it's actually faster and Chris King bearings wear so well that they only get faster with time. That's how hard both the balls and the races are.

Google xd15 enduro

Google “enduro bearings XD-15”

You should check out XD15 in that case…

About the difference in hardness and elasticity: Hambini compared ceramic bearings with a steel race to driving a train on a tarmac road...

@@eagerbob It's quite an exaggeration, but it gets across the point. tbh, I don't think Hambini knows much about friction or Hardness. It's quite a specialized subject that is little covered in engineering education.

LOL, Take that Knowledge and go to the Trainer Road forums and count up all the "None of my power meters read the same" threads and you realize if a PM is actually consistently acerate in RL situations to within about 10-15w of what you are actually putting out you basically found a Unicorn.

Buy stainless steel bearings, they are perfectly fine for the job and they fail slowly

Curious as well. That 80-100 price point mentioned in the video sounds insane.

Why would you put cheap bearings in your race wheels?

@@johndef5075 for training is perfect. Actually the expensive ones may come from the same factory and from the same production line.

The ball is always harder than the race for any rolling element bearing, even steel.

@@GHinWI I’m talking Rockwell hardness of a material though. It’s a property of the material.

Or it could have been that your original bearings were trashed

@petersouthernboy6327 wheels bought new. Bearings were all replaced last year. I'm very aware of these wheels and how they feel and spin. Ceramics are faster. Kogel bearings all the way.

@@michaelmappin4425 No way Bontrager put NTN or FAG or SKF bearings in their OEM wheels. They went Chinese.

Your maths is wrong... it is 0.11 seconds.

Apparently both of my responses have been deleted. But the reality of a 1 watt change in power is shown exactly by any bike calculator program.

If you were using a bike calculator program that's 0.11 minutes (or more).... not 0.11 seconds