Hey there, not sure which steering axle is your latest one in your photo, but the one on the lower has the inner race of your upper headset bearing stuck to us indicating that your bearing was heavily corroded. The upper headset bearing needs to be replaced often as your natural body position causes it to be covered in sweat. Your steer stub makes this worse as it does not have the integrated setup to help block most of the sweat from that bearing.

I would suggest replacing the steering axle and the upper bearing (and lower while you're at it) but make sure to apply grease to them to help protect them and to prevent creaks. Force wouldn't be your culprit here since you are not at a heavy weight for the bike - just corrosion!

Let me know if you have any Qs.

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Mitchell Mathews | Community Manager | Trek Bikes | @mitchmathewz

Hi Mitch,

Thanks for the response.
Yeah, the inner race is being stuck is from my second one and I'm plan on replacing that as well.
Last time I replaced the internal steerer as well as the steerer stub since they were rubbing against each other i thought might not have as good of a contact if i only replaced the steerer. Can I get away with just replacing the internal steerer?

Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly, you think it's the sweat that's causing the wearing of the internal steerer?

Thanks

Gotcha, glad that's the old one at least. You don't need to replace the Steer Stub as that isn't a wearing item, just the steering axle and headset bearings. If you replace the headset bearings more frequently, you can reuse the steering axle as it shouldn't need replaced. Just grease it and the headset and you will help them from making noise as they are meant to sit up together.

If you do sweat a lot, corrosion is the #1 bearing killer. You can use low pressure water and pour it over the headset area after a few rides to help keep everything tip top. My old coworker actually sprayed his cockpit down after every ride to prevent the sweat build up, but you still have to replace bearings after enough salt gets to it.

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Mitchell Mathews | Community Manager | Trek Bikes | @mitchmathewz