foxyrider wrote:I'm buying some new wheels for the sportive play thing, Campag Zonda's which are light, reasonably priced bits of kit. They are supplied (as far as I can ascertain) with cone and cup steel bearings. It is possible to replace the steel with ceramic as an upgrade, the Campag set is not cheap at @ £100 a set but it is possible to buy loose ceramic balls at much lower cost.
I don't want an argument over the pro's and con's of steel / ceramic - I've done the reading!
What I would like is some feedback on these unbranded bearings. Has anyone used them?
You won't get any real benefit from simply using "ceramic balls" in the hub.
Ceramic bearings have a real good quality: they don't rust. But for doing this, it needs to be either full-ceramic (balls+races) or ceramic/special stainless.
Now, the Campagnolo hubs use their own cup&cone system, so if you want the full-ceramic thing that is not possible, but you can have the ceramic/special stainless like in the CULT bearings. They do work well indeed, I'm not talking about speed or watts saved, merely about longevity.
You can also get a #6803 ceramic bearing for the freehub, the outer one can be replaced but the inner one is very tricky and needs some skill&tooling. given that the outer freehub bearing is the one that goes rusty first, it can be replaced with some improvement in that regard.
RC models shops are a good source for them
