Ceramic Bearing Vs Steel Cycling

The influx of ceramic bearing development into the bike industry sparked needed focus on reducing rolling friction in bearings.

Ceramic bearing vs steel cycling. Hybrid ceramic vs steel bearings. This is mostly due to the additional time spent to perfect a quality ceramic ball. The ceramic balls are often silicon nitride or equivalent. The first thing that strikes the eye when looking at bicycle bearings is the difference in price between steel bearings and hybrid ceramic bearings.

They use ceramic balls and usually a steel inner and outer race. Ceramic vs steel bearing bb for durability. I albeit lighter at 160 lbs use standard bearing in both my rain and training bike and haven t had any problems. I have around 8k miles on one set and over twice that on the other.

Ceramic bearings are often represented as the ultimate way to minimize rolling friction on your bike. Most cycling bearings feature a steel race though some do use a ceramic race which we will briefly touch on later. Ceramic bearings are in actual fact hybrid. Internal bearing construction ceramic bearings are not 100 ceramic.

However the reality of why some bearing designs are faster than others doesn t always align with what is presented. This article to try to assist with this fun little area. Next there is the lubricant. Lubricants vary greatly in viscosity thickness finding varying points in a trade off between bearing protection and lower friction.

Is this the first time it s happened or is this a reoccurring problem.