Wheel bearings sealed or not

jeremyrundle

Apart from the obvious one is sealed and one is not, my question is which to chose.

I have Googled and as is typical there are explanation except the "personal" choice as to which :!:

Thank you

flateric

Personal choice....

i would personally factor in cost, quality of product, you get what you pay for!!! and also wether i can be arsed to do regular maintainence.

for me, i see sealed bearings as fit and forget throwing them out when they wear out, non sealed means regular strip and regrease, especially after riding though deep water, which has caught me out previously LOL

nicklouse

err just about every hub out there has sealed bearings.

jeremyrundle

nicklouse wrote:

err just about every hub out there has sealed bearings.

My local shop offers both and has a wide range of both sealed and non, they are mainly MTB sales but will build any bike, I like the idea of fit and forget, as tyhe previous person said, but I do wonder, when ikt comes to £200 plus wheels, do I want to "throw away", and how long should they last if you can not maintain them.

desweller

Do you mean cartridge bearings or sealed bearings? They are not the same.

A cartridge bearing is a bearing assembly of inner and outer races and balls that is pressed into the hub.

This is not the same as a sealed bearing which simply means that the hub design incorporates some sort of polymer seal to prevent ingress of contaminants. A cartridge bearing may be sealed or not sealed. EDIT: although, in bicycle applications, I would be very surprised to encounter an unsealed cartridge bearing

jeremyrundle

DesWeller wrote:

Do you mean cartridge bearings or sealed bearings? They are not the same.

A cartridge bearing is a bearing assembly of inner and outer races and balls that is pressed into the hub.

This is not the same as a sealed bearing which simply means that the hub design incorporates some sort of polymer seal to prevent ingress of contaminants. A cartridge bearing may be sealed or not sealed. EDIT: although, in bicycle applications, I would be very surprised to encounter an unsealed cartridge bearing

Show off, I don't know :?

http://www.rutlandcycling.com/26091/Bla ... elset.html

These

desweller

They're sealed. They may be cartridge; they may be cup-and-cone. You will have to check either with the manufacturer or with the shop.

EDIT: Regarding the OP, my preference is for cup-and-cone bearings, although they can be a little time consuming to adjust. It's a close run thing though.

EDIT II: Chances are that, as cartridge bearings seem to have some sort of cachet over cup-and-cone bearings (presumably due to being a more recent innovation), if the units on the Blackjack wheels were cartridge it would likely say so. So I'm going for cup-and-cone bearings on those wheels.

The Rookie

To add tthe only unsealed wheels I have are are on my pub bike which is a circa 1994 steel framed Townsend.

Even Carrera subway wheels are sealed.

Simon

Craggers

I run both types of hubs on 2 different bikes... cartridge bearings on my langster and cup and cone deore hubs on the mtb... much prefer the cartridge bearings as I haven't even had to look at them in the 12 months I've been running the hubs, and are still as smooth running as when they were new, whilst the deore hubs need tweaking every couple of weeks, and completely stripping/regreasing every 3 months or so.

Also, once the cup part of the deore hub is worn or pitted, the hub is shot, whilst you'll just be able to fit new cartridges to a cartridge hub once the bearings are worn.

vorsprung

I've used 105 hubs on a number of bikes. These take loose bearings but have a labyrith seal on the outside of the hub. Generally these hubs would run for 6 months of rotten weather / 5000km before needing servicing. Sometimes the bearings would need replacing, sometimes it was just fresh grease

So I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have bearings that could resist the weather a bit better and were easy to replace? So on the new bike back in 2007 I got Ambrosio Zenith sealed bearing hubs.

Trouble is, the external seals on Zeniths are utterly useless. The hubs would be immediately effected by any water penetration. The bearings would self destruct after only a few hundred km. Replacing the bearings required special tools, a certain knack with mechanical things ( I lack this ) and the strength of Hercules

I'd prefer 105 hubs over Ambrosio Zenith under any circumstances.

Best bike has a Hope hub now

Bottom line is that a particular type "sealed bearings" vs "non sealed bearings" isn't as important as the overall design of the part