Bearings don’t always get the attention they should when it comes to bikes. You usually only hear about them when people are talking about ceramic upgrades, or complaining when one goes bad. They play very important roles on your bike, so we caught up with Chuck Panaccione of Enduro Bearings to hear more about what is new, and talk through their different levels of bearings.
Enduro Bearings isn’t just bearings though. The brand has diversified between bearings, seals, and tools for cycling, along with providing bearings, seals, and chains for industrial applications. It makes you wonder, will we see Enduro Bearings chains someday on our bikes?
When we caught up with them, the big news was their newest addition to the brand’s tools, the Fork Seal Driver.
“We’ve always made fork seals, and we’ve changed them up a little bit,” said Panaccione. “We like the two piece fork seal idea, because the two materials do completely different things. They are different durometers. One seals and one is a dust wiper. People didn’t like the two piece design, though, so what we ended up doing is taking the two pieces and cryogenically sealed them together by shrinking one and fitting it into the other, similar to how stanchions are put into fork crown braces.”
What makes their fork driver tool interesting is that it is modular. Say you have a 32mm stanchion, but the outer is 42 or 42mm. The tool is essentially three pieces, the handle, the outer set and inner guide. The Outer set piece works to set your seal and wiper using the same tool. You just spin it around to have the appropriate side, which is labeled for convenience. The great thing about thing about the modular design is that you have less pieces in your tool kit that you have to carry, which is great for shops and pro mechanics that need to travel light. To put the combination together, you just slide the inner guide with the outer set piece in the appropriate direction for the seal or wiper you are installing, and then slide the handle in and screw it all together. Very simple. As an added bonus, the handle is hollowed out, which makes it lighter, but also gives you some space to stash things like grease, seals, bolts, or anything else you want to carry along.
While we were at the booth, we also wanted to get the lowdown on the bearing line up. Whether you are looking for a budget build or a top end ceramic set up, Enduro Bearings has options to cover just about any part of your bike that has bearings. Headsets, bottom brackets, wheels, pulleys, suspension pivots, they have a solution.
If you were like me and played inline hockey back in the day, you were obsessed with bearings, and the acronym ABEC was part of what you were looking for. It stands for Annular Bearing Engineers’ Committee scale, which is basically an industry agreed upon standard of roundness of ball bearings. The higher the number, the more precisely round they are. This is important as we move forward.
Starting things off are the ABEC 3 bearings. Enduro Bearings’ ABEC 3’s use grade 10 Chromium Steel balls, which are within 10/1,000,000″ round. They claim it is twice as high as the industry standard at its highest level, which is pretty round. The races 52100 Chromium alloy steel which has gone through a vacuum degassing process to pull out impurities. It is then hardened to R-62 standards to create an extremely durable race. Before the bearing is assembled, the race is polished to make it extremely smooth and quiet.
Next up, ABEC5. These bearings take precision up a notch to 5/1,000,000″ (precision military spec) tolerances using the same materials. The Chromium Steel balls are hardened to an R-64 level, which is the highest grade. Inside, they use nylon retainers to hold the balls in place. Graphite has been added, which makes for a frictionless retainer that also adds some lubrication. Besides the precision to which the balls are made, there are additional tests that take these bearings to a higher level than the ABEC3. Noise testing at high RPM, inner and outer diameter of the races, trueness of the races, and surface polish and imperfections are all tested and have to pass to meet ABEC5 levels. Additionally, to meet C-3 Clearance standards, Enduro Bearings’ races feature tighter clearance than others brands. Let’s say you have a bearing that has a 10-18 inner diameter. Enduro Bearings’ standard is 11-21 micrometers, while other brands tolerances are 11-25 micrometers. This makes for a more stable bearing, with less play.
Before we move forward, there is another bearing we want to talk about, the stainless steel bearings. These bearings come in ABEC3 and 5 levels and are made from 440 stainless steel. While the load levels are about 20% less than the Chromium steel bearing we just talked about, their corrosion resistance is second to none. These bearings are extremely popular in Europe and we have been told a favorite of US National Cyclocross Champion, Katie Compton. These are perfect for bearings that constantly see wet conditions, or for headsets where sweat ingress can be an issue that corrodes the balls. Additionally, they use LLB type seals and CRC marine grease to help waterproof these bearings.
Next, Angular Contact (AC) bearings. These are designed differently than the previous bearings we spoke about. AC bearings push the balls to one side, while the radial bearings we have spoken about so far are centered in the retainer. The advantage here is that all the balls are in contact and distributing the load at any time, whereas only 3-4 are in contact on the radial bearings. This decreases friction and wear while making a more stable bearing, which is important for applications like wheels. Enduro Bearings uses a 15-degree angular contact vs a typical 45 degree. The advantages here are there is less sideload needed.
The next three levels of bearings get you into the ceramic level. With all of their ceramic bearings, Enduro Bearings only uses bearings from Japanese manufacturers, Hitachi and Cerbec.
The Ceramic Hybrid ABEC5 bearings are a mix of the ABEC5 bearings with oversized Silicone Nitride ABEC5 balls that have received a cryogenic treatment to make them even more durable. The advantages over the steel ABEC5 bearings are an increase of speed and durability. Available in radial and angular contact, it is a great way to break into ceramic bearings.
ZERØ Ceramic Grade takes things a big step further. These race-ready bearings are made with oversized Grade 3 Silicone Nitride balls that run on races that have been ground to a mirror finish and then getting Magnetite and cryogenic finishes to increase corrosion resistance and durability, respectively. The Magnetite gives the bearings their distinctive black oxide color. In place of rubber seals, they use Silicone seals to additionally further decrease friction. When you want to go fast, these are where to start. In their in-house testing that can destroy bearings in a matter of hours, the Magnetite black oxide coating helps them last significantly longer.
Their top of the line bearings are the XD-15 Ceramic Grade. Instead of Chromium steel, they use Nitrogen steel from a manufacturer in the south of France that has been ground down to ABEC5 tolerances.
“The reason why it is so amazing is because of the lack of pits in the steel,” explained Panaccione. “Pits in regular steel happen from carbide formation, carbide imperfections. With Nitrogen steel, the imperfections are a lot smaller and the metal is a lot more homogenous.”
Additionally, it is more resistant to corrosion, which is why it is a steel of choice of Airbus. Add in oversized Grade 3 Silicone Nitride balls, the XD-15’s are their fastest and most durable bearings on offer, and will spin the same from day one to years down the road.
Finally, Enduro Bearings also have their MAX bearings. These bearings are made for pivots and other applications that do not continuously rotate, but more rock. Instead of nylon retainers, groves are ground into the races so the balls stay in place. They are packed with as many balls as possible, which sometimes means multiple rows. They are available in radial and angular contact, regular or black oxide, and come in many different flange sizes to fit a huge number of applications.
Along with the bearings, Enduro makes their own pulley wheels and bottom brackets to upgrade your bike, including the TorqTite bottom brackets. These bottom brackets are a solution to help with creaky and misaligned pressfit bottom brackets. We have a full set of bearings coming for our Focus Mares test rig, and will have a full review coming later in the year once we have a chance to put some miles on them.
Heckling Editor, Image Taker, Crash Test Dummy, and Beard Master at Bikeworldnews.com
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