"These headsets last forever"?

[AndyA]

To the King sceptics:

1. The point of a King headset is they make their own bearings which are, apparently better than other brands.
2. You don't need any special tools. They fit the same as any other headset. This rumour comes from some hubs needing an imperial allen key.
3. You don't need to send the headset back to King for a bearing change. I've never heard of a King headset needing new bearings, but you could take it to a dealer or do it yourself.

My view of King headsets is that they are the best. They are better than most applications need, and it is debateable whether the quality is worth the extra cost.

I have to say I disagree with you on point 3 - you cannot buy replacement headset bearings from Chris King therefore you cannot do it yourself. They require you to post the headset back to them or their distributor. I've done it twice in the last few years on customers bikes. One of them was definitely death by overtightening, the other that plus years of road salt and no mudguards.

For what it's worth I agree, they are the best and excessively so! However, if someone wants a fancy headset I usually try and point them in the direction of Hope as they are also great quality and relatively locally made

You mean you have to drive the headset out of the headtube? The complete assembly?

Yup, headset cups removed from frame, posted off to Saddleback their UK importer (used to be Evolution Imports) for them to inspect, replace bearings, post back and refit to frame

[mikeymo]

I have to say I disagree with you on point 3 - you cannot buy replacement headset bearings from Chris King therefore you cannot do it yourself. They require you to post the headset back to them or their distributor. I've done it twice in the last few years on customers bikes. One of them was definitely death by overtightening, the other that plus years of road salt and no mudguards.

For what it's worth I agree, they are the best and excessively so! However, if someone wants a fancy headset I usually try and point them in the direction of Hope as they are also great quality and relatively locally made

You mean you have to drive the headset out of the headtube? The complete assembly?

Yup, headset cups removed from frame, posted off to Saddleback their UK importer (used to be Evolution Imports) for them to inspect, replace bearings, post back and refit to frame

That is one of the most stupid things I've ever heard of. This isn't the space shuttle we're talking about. It's a simple bearing to make sure that the handle bars can wiggle from side to side.

So ordinary Jo Bloggs needs to either take his bike to a bike shop, and be without it for well, you would know, a week? Some people only have one bike (I know, crazy eh?).

Or he if he wants to do it himself he now needs two specialist tools that aren't any good for anything else, that he'll hardly ever use, the expanding petal shaped thing to knock it out, and a headset press to put it back in. Yes, yes, I know somebody here will pipe up with "I just knock 'em out with a bit of old gas pipe and smack 'em back in with the back of a shovel". But Mr Not-Done-This-Sort-Of-Thing-Very-Often, might prefer to take a bit more care, and use the right tools.

I thought the whole damn point of cartridge bearings was - "and if your bearings get a bit rough, take them out and replace with a new set of cartridge bearings, simples. None of that messing about with nasty grease and loose ball bearings anymore".

But with Chris King bearings (what the hell are they made out of, unobtanium?), it's now actually a lot worse than back in the good old days. Oh no, even if you don't mind a bit of grease and grime you can't replace them. You have to wait for the bleedin' horse drawn carriage to arrive and whisk them away to some special secret underground bunker for scientists in white coats to mend them. And god help you if Chris King ever falls out with their UK distributor.

It's a headset for Pete's sake. This should be a 10 minute job you can do on your own on a Sunday afternoon. I've never heard such nonsense.

[PH]

That is one of the most stupid things I've ever heard of. This isn't the space shuttle we're talking about. It's a simple bearing to make sure that the handle bars can wiggle from side to side.

Good rant
But they're not compulsory, there's plenty of headset choice.
They seem to be one of a category of products where you weigh up the chances of it going wrong and needing attention against the hassle of dealing with it when it does. I would add Rohloff hubs and SON dynamos to the same category, all three are too expensive to abandon, so you're committed from the start and people tend to get quite emotional about those as well.

[Samuel D]

One of the problems with the threadless headsets I’ve used is that there appears to be no perfect preload adjustment. If you back off the preload to nearly nothing, the upper cup and cone go visibly out of concentricity under hard braking (maybe the lower one does too, but it’s harder to see). The steering stiffens at the same time, though it immediately frees up when you turn the bars.

But if you add more preload to get rid of that (making sure the handlebar still falls freely to either side when the bicycle is lifted off the ground and tilted 5° off the vertical), the bearings protest.

I’m currently trying a messy compromise with my Campagnolo Record and changing the grease often. That hasn’t stopped the familiar witness marks from showing up on the races.

For whatever reason, I have not had this problem to the same extent with threaded headsets. Why might that be? (I’ve had other problems with those.)

The tapered roller bearings used in motorcycle headsets are set at an angle that would better resist this problem. Why not in bicycles too?

Do any of the vaunted cartridge-type headsets mentioned in this thread have a particularly clear best-preload adjustment?

[reohn2]

Samuel
I've never experienced the problems you have.
Currently I have one Hope(ten years old) and two FSA(one 5 years and one 18months old)none of which show any signs of play or tightness.
Pre load on all three is easily set with approx 5Nm torque on the top cap with the stem bolts slackened off,all three are smooth and without judder in heavy braking,see rough use off road regulary and very rarely need further adjustment.
I'm very happy with all three.

[Samuel D]

I believe ~5 Nm on the cap bolt would get rid of movement in mine too, but wouldn’t that run into the other problem?

I thought the Campagnolo Record would solve all the problems I’ve had with cheaper headsets, but seems not. On the other hand, the steering is still smooth, so what’s the problem really? No rust either, unlike my last headset.

Having several bikes over which to spread the wear is cheating! Taken to the extreme, a garage queen’s headset would last forever.

[mikeymo]

That is one of the most stupid things I've ever heard of. This isn't the space shuttle we're talking about. It's a simple bearing to make sure that the handle bars can wiggle from side to side.

Good rant

Yes, I feel much better now.

But they're not compulsory, there's plenty of headset choice.

Too right. And there's one less to choose from now, which is great for me.

They seem to be one of a category of products where you weigh up the chances of it going wrong and needing attention against the hassle of dealing with it when it does. I would add Rohloff hubs and SON dynamos to the same category, all three are too expensive to abandon, so you're committed from the start and people tend to get quite emotional about those as well.

Two pairs of round bits of metal with grooves in them, some round balls of metal, with some grease? Yeah, really complicated engineering that. Not really like a Rohloff, is it?

But like you say, there's plenty of other headsets to choose from. But if you want a wide range IGH, not so much.

[PH]

Two pairs of round bits of metal with grooves in them, some round balls of metal, with some grease? Yeah, really complicated engineering that. Not really like a Rohloff, is it?

Well yes and no, you don't have to go too far up thread to see that some people are dissatisfied with the standard product.

[mikeymo]

Two pairs of round bits of metal with grooves in them, some round balls of metal, with some grease? Yeah, really complicated engineering that. Not really like a Rohloff, is it?

Well yes and no, you don't have to go too far up thread to see that some people are dissatisfied with the standard product.

Sure. But the idea of having to remove (with some difficulty, for most people) a component and returning it to the manufacturer is just bonkers. Especially as they're not based in this country. That isn't any sort of jingoism, it's a practical concern.

If I was going to spend that much on a headset, I'd get a Hope. At least I know exactly where the factory is.

[reohn2]

I believe ~5 Nm on the cap bolt would get rid of movement in mine too, but wouldn’t that run into the other problem?

Which other problem?
With about 5Nm preload(I don't have torque wrench with such a low figure so it's a guess)the steering falls freely and smoothly to each side with the front end lifted of the ground.

Having several bikes over which to spread the wear is cheating!

Well yes I s'pose yer right it is

All three of mine are cartridge bearing,is the Campag you have not?

[PH]

But the idea of having to remove (with some difficulty, for most people) a component and returning it to the manufacturer is just bonkers.

Yes, but the point is that people buying them are doing so in the expectation that they'll never have to remove it. That's what they're paying for. On the whole, it appears those people are satisfied, good for them.

[Brucey]

good quality bearings can feel fine even with several hundred kg preload on them. Which is what you will get with 5Nm on the cap bolt.

The problem is that service loads add to the preload (esp on the lower race) and this means the bearings transiently exceed their static load rating quite readily if the preload is set too high.

So 'feeling smooth' is a very poor indicator of acceptable preload.

A much better indicator of acceptable preload is absence of free play in use. However there are some headset problems (to do with clearances and alignment) that are not 'cured' by increasing preload until the free play goes away by which time the preload is excessive and may not be shared over the bearing area in the required fashion. So there are some bikes which repeatedly kill headsets and will do until their fundamental problems are addressed.

1" steerers that are very long can flex too much and this tends to knock lower headset bearings out faster than normal; that cartridge bearings can articulate on their angled seatings can help protect the bearing from damage but it also changes the bending loads in the steerer too, possibly not in a good way.

cheers

[NickJP]

A much better indicator of acceptable preload is absence of free play in use.

Regarding headset adjustment, I have sometimes wondered about the effect of temperature changes on bikes where the fork steerer and head tube are dissimilar materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion. For example, a CF steerer in an aluminium head tube.

The coefficient of thermal expansion of aluminium is roughly 0.000024m/(m °C), so an aluminium bike with a 150mm long head tube experiencing a 50°C temperature change will have a change in head tube length of ~0.2mm. OTOH, CF composites have very low coefficients of thermal expansion, and depending on the layup, can even shrink as they are heated. The figures I have seen are in the range of -0.000001m/(m °C) to 0.000001m/(m °C).

Around here, there's easily a 50°C temperature difference between riding on a cold winter morning with the temperature several degrees below freezing, and on a hot summer day, in the sun with the shade temperature over 40°C. So a headset that is correctly adjusted at one temperature can be either loose or overly tight at another, depending the conditions when it was installed.

[Samuel D]

A swing in length of 0.2 mm is equivalent to a 72° turn of the M6x1 preload bolt. That’s huge.

[pwa]

Either I have a magic touch with an allen key or I've been really lucky, because the move over to threadless headsets brought me no problems. My headsets have still lasted a long time with very little maintenance and the only failure, after a decade of neglect and lots of wet weather use, was a bottom race that corroded. I could have replaced the bearing itself for not much money (FSA) but fancied a change so replaced the whole unit. If I had re-greased the thing once a year it might still be going. I did know not to preload the thing too much, so just got it to the point where play disappeared and whatever anyone says, disaster did not result. I have not had a failure other than through corrosion after a long time and no maintenance. I regard threadless headsets as one of the least troublesome components on a bike.