I’m looking for a reasonably priced 1" threadless headset for my Bareknuckle. I know it’s just a headset, but I want something that won’t go crunch after just a few months.
I’ve heard great things about the Cane Creek S-8. It’s only ~$50 and has been rated to be on par with CK ones. The CC S-3’s also seem to get a lot of attention.
I guess they made Bareknuckles in both 1" and 1-1/8", depending on what they had at the time. I got mine new, but I think it’s NOS from a few years ago.
Cane Creeks are fine. I’ve been using the same cobbled Aheadset (that’s probably also branded as a Cane Creek) for years on my BK. Just make sure to keep the grease clean and replace the bearings on rare occasion.
An argument can be made about the design merits and obvious cost difference of the two headsets, but the point the author tries to bring up about the difference in hardness values of the bearing race materials is a bit silly. A 2 point difference on the Rockwell C scale is minuscule if not inconsequential, especially when both materials exhibit a variance larger than the difference (5 points) and overlap one another within that variance.
I’d agree that the Cane Creek wins on a budget build (the point of this thread anyway), but I’m not so sure I would call it better overall. Sorry for the digression.
Can you quantify or prove any of this? I’m not asking sarcastically, but I hear this said a lot, but never hear the why. I have a no-name headset on my hybrid of 9 years that has been through hell and back and never been maintained, and it still works perfectly. How is King better?
I think there’s really no question that CK uses better materials and bearings all around, but what your statement demonstrates is that lesser materials are perfectly adequate, and Chris Kings are unnecessarily overbuilt and expensive. And I own two CKs.
I think there’s really no question that CK uses better materials and bearings all around, but what your statement demonstrates is that lesser materials are perfectly adequate, and Chris Kings are unnecessarily overbuilt and expensive. And I own two CKs.[/quote]
This. One examination of a Chris King and you’ll know the difference. Any kind of reasonably decent sealed cartridge bearings are going to be overkill for the application as long as they support axial loads well. IIRC I looked up some headset bearings in a bearing app chart and they were spec’d to 10k or 30k rpm or something.
What makes the bigger difference is that the headset be properly installed and adjusted.