Enduro Bearings' New Maxhit Headset Has a Lifetime Guarantee - Sea Otter 2021
Enduro Bearings may have built a better mousetrap with their new Maxhit headset and bottom bracket design. The Maxhit components are essentially oversized stainless steel cartridge bearings that are pressed directly into a frame, no aluminum cups required. In a typical zero stack headset an aluminum cup is pressed into a frame, and then a sealed cartridge bearing is seated into that cup. It's a design that's become very common over the last decade – the days of fully external headsets are fading fast in the rearview mirror.
With the Maxhit headsets, that aluminum cup is removed, creating room for bigger ball bearings – ones with 8 times more mass in this case – which Enduro says doubles the load rating and increases the lifespan substantially.
A side view of the new Maxhit headset.
The bearings have a mass that's 8 times greater than what's typically used in a zero stack headset.
Needing to pound out and press in a new headset whenever it's time for new bearings seems like it'd be sort of a pain, but the good news is that all of the Maxhit headsets and bottom brackets are guaranteed for life, which means that replaing them shouldn't be a common occurrence. That coverage includes corrosion, good news for riders in wet, salty climates. If a Maxhit headset or BB stops functioning like it should, Enduro Bearings will take care of it.
The zero stack headsets will be available in January 2022, with a retail price of $119 USD.
The bottom brackets will be available in the second quarter of 2022 for the following bottom bracket types: BSA 24 (Shimano), BSA 29 (SRAM DUB), BSA 30, and BB 86/92. A T-47 model is in the works for the end of 2022. MSRP: $159 USD.
The silver bearings are an oversized illustration of the size difference between a typical bottom bracket bearing and the ones used in a Maxhit bottom bracket.
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For those considering these, I would recommend a replaceable bearing headset and bb (for example a wheels mfg bb and a hope/chis king/cane creek (110) headset). Then buy the cheaper abec 3 bearings and just have a stockpile of them. A clean, fresh bearing is way better than a blown-out expensive ceramic bearing. The lifetime cost will be about the same, but you will always be riding on fresh bearings.
I am no longer affiliated with enduro (due to career change) so feel free to ask any questions about enduro or wheels mfg or the headset manufacturers and I will give you down to earth experience and opinions.
As soon as a bearing is contaminated it’s days are numbered no matter how big or high end the balls inside are.
I’d be curious to see if a manufacturer could utilize a low friction lipseal design (at least on a bb) in combination with a sealed bearing containing a marine grade grease (not sure if most standard sealed bearings have a water resistant grease). We constantly see different types of bearings used in an attempt to increase longevity but seldom see the addition of other sealing methods in addition to the bearing(s) themselves.
To summarize - the problem in bearings is always the sealing ability - these greatly improve that which is always a plus.
The balls themselves are VERY strong and it is very rare to see an impact-related failure of the balls.
Hope also makes a bb comparable to wheels for certain applications.
Instal once - ride entire frame life
Cane Creek 110 headsets, and Hellbender 70 headsets are fantastic because they not only use good bearings (that I think are full contact sealed?), but the cup/cover system up top has an additional o-ring gasket, and the crown race has a double lip seal, so water and dirt have a hard time even reaching the bearings in the first place. Awesome products.
Just like hubs where the labyrinth is designed into the axle ends, freehub, and hub shell components - all the bits before you reach the bearings - the labyrinth in a headset would normally be designed into the cup/cap interface. The point of the labyrinth is to make the bearings harder to reach for dirt/water
Fun fact: an over greased bearing will actually run at a higher temperature and get to that temperature quicker before levelling out once the access grease has worked in or been purged out of the bearing during operation at which point the bearing temps will stabilize.
I believe the upper actually has a labyrinth, then an o-ring seal/gasket, and then the full contact seal. Bottom has a double lip contact seal on the race, and then again on the bearing. Hard to beat the 110 and Hellbender headsets!
Just rereading your comments.
I think you mean the bearing shield itself and the race is a labyrinth? I don't think that's quite What labrinth is meant to mean. Most sealed cartridge bearing have a groves machined in them that the seal sits in. Some are full contact, some light contact, some non contact. Not really what is refered to as a labyrinth seal. Labrinth seals are generally manipulation in the pathway to the bearing to help keep water and dust caught up closer to the outside. Many headsets machine a Labrinth between the upper cap and the upper cup. If you google "Labrinth seal headset" you'll see an image of a Wolftooth with Labrinth seal noted, with lines going to both cup and cap. Some hubs use them, as well - Onyx for example, machines them between hubshell and freehub, if you are familiar with these. Has nothing to do with the bearing itself. Same for most headsets - Labrinth is the pathway to the bearing, between the cap and cup - nothing to do with the bearing it self.
But I suppose you could argue a non contact seal on a cartridge bearing is a Labrinth of sorts.
www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/testicle-injuries-and-conditions
In the cycle industry is limited by the weight we want our parts, there seems to be little sharing and improving of tech, but there is....a little but not much.
Or just buy a Chris King
And they're such big balls
And their fancy big balls
And he's got big balls
And she's got big balls
(But we've got the biggest balls of them all
Once your zero stack headset cups are installed you can just drop new bearings into the cups whenever the old ones wear out... With this product you've gotta pound out the whole bearing assembly when it inevitably fails (and it will fail).
Literally the biggest piece of shit in history
TIL, a sphere's geometric volume increases 8-fold from only doubling the sphere's diameter.
That and I learned that I'm weird enough to try and imagine a ball bearing that has 8 times the diameter of a normal one fitting in a bike's head tube... thinking that can't be correct, then fearing that the balls in my headset are actually smaller than I thought, having not checked under the cartridges' seals.
So yes. Double the radius and the volume increases 8 fold. It’s math n stuff.
The optimal packing factor of spheres is about 74%, which is to say a uniform pile of spheres is about 74% spheres and 26% space between spheres by volume
The packing factor of 4D hyperspheres is around 61%
The packing factor of 8D hyperspheres is around 25% and the empty spaces between the spheres are big enough to fit more spheres, which is upsetting if you think about it too long
And it keeps getting worse the more dimensions you add
Sorry
I wonder how much the bearing clearance on these is affected by the interference fit with the head tube vs. bearing-in-cup style? The best part may actually be deletion of the “self-adjusting” cup to outside of outer race interface because that’s where the creaking usually ends up eventually coming from.
the bearings have a mass 8 times that??? so its 8 times heavier then