Advice needed - Rusty bearings on 4 week old bike.

RS300325

I'm sure you are right Chunkers1980, no doubt they could be regularly stripped, cleaned and regreased, but I'd rather not be doing that on a frequent basis given there are alternatives. And should that really be necessary on a £3K bike, in the first few months of riding? Depends on mileage/conditions I suppose.

rockmonkeysc

MajorMantra wrote:

There's pretty much no reason to turn a bike upside down ever. True story.

It's very good for your fork to be stored upside down occasionally. It gives the seals and bushes a soaking of oil.

majormantra

Fair point.

russyh

RS300325 wrote:

I'm sure you are right Chunkers1980, no doubt they could be regularly stripped, cleaned and regreased, but I'd rather not be doing that on a frequent basis given there are alternatives. And should that really be necessary on a £3K bike, in the first few months of riding? Depends on mileage/conditions I suppose.

Correct, the fact the headset is already looking screwed (sure it's repairable) is enough for me with my experience to replace with something I can fit and forget.

IT66T

Well i've just replaced my threaded headset on my 15 year old commuter and i found a couple of little specs of rust on the bearings out of the top of the the old head set after all that time and for the last 8 months it was left uncovered in my daughters back garden and although i've only had the bike a couple of years i've never greased the headset so i'd have expected the head set bearings on a 3K bike to last a lot better than that after only a small amount of time and use
..

Boromedic

Horton wrote:

montyburns56b wrote:

If you don't ride around with mudguards then it might also be an idea to fit one of these Lizard Skins Headset Covers.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/liza ... p-prod4773

I'm sorry, but IMHO, no, not a great idea - once the water and crap get in (which it will) it's then stuck in and creates a lovely grinding paste... Better just to get a decent sealed headset and avoid hosing it down... Although I do like a mucky nutz fender thing to keep crap out of my face, off the fork stanchions and off the lower race...

I agree wholeheartedly on the Muckynutz fender thing, got one for my bike when I fitted the hope made a great difference to the amount of shite that gets thrown up into the steerer/headset. You can blast away the gunk without damaging the headset too. The only downside I noticed is when ploughing through deeper water with the wheel slightly turned it would occasionally direct a nice flow of water all over my shoes!!! Nice in summer, sucks ass in winter :-)

The Rookie

Chunkers1980 wrote:

That's a load of tosh. I have on my commuter a cane creek, bottom rung, barely sealed and it gets regreased every year and still works fine. Same caged bearings it came with 8 years and pushing 20k later

My commuter uses the OE 2006 headset that came out of my Vulcan, that bike looked like it had been stored in a ditch when I got it, the outside of the bearings were rusty as hell (one piece bearings), but I squidged some grease in and they are still working fine 4 years later, so that's a total life of 8 years as well on some cheap Carrera OE ones!