Ceramic Bearings Vs Steel Bearings Bicycle Wheels

You choose your adventure we build the bearings to match.

Ceramic bearings vs steel bearings bicycle wheels.

Cracking a race could stop a wheel from turning instantly and no good comes of wheels permanently locking up on a bicycle. Because ceramic races are more brittle than steel. Quite a few wheel manufacturers state that the use of aftermarket bearings in their wheels voids the warranty. The advantages of steel are not the only argument against ceramic bearings.

Built specifically for road or off road use. The ceramic balls are often silicon nitride or equivalent. Steel bearings are commodity items that are composed of hardened steel balls and a steel inner and outer race. They ceramic bearings do run with less friction which offers a significant advantage in industrial applications running at 20 000 rpm.

Steel rings and ceramic balls are the gold standard for bicycle wheel bearings. A tiny percentage reduction in friction here can equate to a worthwhile power saving but when you re only turning at 300 rpm as you do on a bicycle a small percentage increase in efficiency will make a negligible change to your power output. This is mostly due to the additional time spent to perfect a quality ceramic ball. Cost of purchase for ceramic and steel bearings.

How to get the best performance from ceramic bearings ceramic speed. How to get the best performance from ceramic bearings ceramic speed. So for safety reasons ceramic wheel bearings on bicycles are in fact almost always hybrid design meaning ceramic balls on steel races. More durable than high quality steel bearings.

Geometrically the contact points inner and outer dimensions and thickness between steel and ceramic bearings is the same so they are interchangeable. The folks at enduro bearings argue that for bicycles the materials are far more important than abec ratings and that for most applications abec 3 and 5 are appropriate for all things bicycle.