What I've Learned About Ballbearings

Ball bearings are important. Maybe, you've spent an evening drinking wine and thinking, "Gee, I really need to repack my hubs." So you do, but then while you're tapping the bearings out of the old, disgustingly filthy grease, they drop into your cup filled with degreaser but then bounce out and roll around and get lost. So then, you say, "Man, fuck this. Bearings don't really need balls."

Incorrect. Without balls, you've just got metal rubbing against metal. With balls, you've got metal rolling against metal.

If you're like me, you've wondered if there's a golden rule or two for how to get yourself from a crappy bearing interface to an awesome one. If you're occasionally like Evan, you've forsaken research in favor of finding out some functional guidelines:

1. Phil Wood's Waterproof Grease. Jesus, this stuff is:
a: greasey!
b: slippery!
c: tenacious!
2. Slick Honey, another grease, does not taste:
a: like honey.
b: delicious in any way.
3. You should not stick too many or too few balls in a bearing assembly. Too few means that the weight of, say, your bike, is being born on a weak, unstable setup. Too many will overload the interface and provide you with a terrible, terrible bearing assembly. What is too many? Put bearings in your cups until you can not fit one more in. Then, take one out. This is the right number.

What am I getting at, in my wordy manner? That I got a wheel for free because it sucked, and I made it awesome.

How being patient and being smart leaves you with quality products that you neither paid for nor stole.

There's a saying: buy it right, or buy it twice. This is a warning to anybody who thinks that the cheapest option is their best option merely because it's the cheapest; I experienced this with the first fixed-gear wheel that I bought. When I started to abuse the drivetrain a little bit, the threaded interface between the cog and the rear wheel stripped, leaving me with a useless hub.

For people like me, who like nice things but can't afford them, the trend of buying so right that you buy all the way to the top is frustrating to watch, because we can't take part in it. That's why I love Formula hubs so much - an affordable hubset ($70) that spins extremely smooth and is sealed well; and when the weather does break in to the seals and start to wear out the grease, you can pop out the cartridge bearings and pop in some new ones ($10).

Those that buy right to the top get Phil Wood hubs ($300). Burly and indestructible; a guy I was chatting with in Union Square told me, "I've been messengering on these hubs for seventeen years and haven't even changed the bearings." Plus, they come with the "no matter what happens, if they break or fail or get messed up, we'll replace them" guarantee. A damn good thing, considering the price tag.

But that kind of bling is not my style. So I'm left a little confused now that I'm the owner of a Phil Wood rear hub (solidly laced to a respectable Velocity Aerohead rim). I certainly don't need the quality of a Phil (and I didn't pay for it, dammit! I traded my Formula/Aerohead wheel, and you know what? I and the other both got something we needed out of it!) - it's not going to make me faster.

But the lesson here is that in order to get quality, you're a fool if you buy right up to the top. My Phil Wood is a tad smoother than my Formula was, completely unnoticable when I'm riding with a full bag and chain in winter clothes, but my midlevel Shimano front hub is remarkably smooth for a hub that only requires occasional (once in two years of owning this used wheel!) maintenance of loosening the bearings just a hair.

There's no substitute for knowing an industry and the specifics of its products. You could buy the sweetest thing there is, but chances are, there's something a little quieter waiting in the corners if you're patient - a great trade, or an under-valued component with really impressive seals on their loose-ball bearings. You can buy it right, you can buy it twice, or you can do something in the middle ground and feel really good about it.