https://www.hambini.com/...ngineering-analysis/

I checked out the GCN video with Hambini on bearings but he didnt mention any specific brand there.

Looks like either NTN LLB og NSK VV bearings is the way to go from his view. I will see if I find get a reasonable to get them shipped to Norway.

Happy with other advice as well as there are no suppliers of those brands in Norway.

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You should have industrial distributors who can re-sell those bearings. I've been in manufacturing plants in your country who use those bearing manufacturers (specifically NTN; they are massive globally) in CNC machine tool spindles and robots.

I've suspected for years that anything of the same size and near enough the same grade will be pretty much the same as the others, performance wise, from any of the 'proper bearing manufacturers' (SKF, FAG, Timken, RHP, INA, NSK etc.).

Cheap shiiite Chinese and all bets are off.

And that the use of ceramic ball bearings in push bikes is all just 21st century Snake Oil.

I've not bothered watching Hamandeggbeano for a few years as his gobshiteiness got too grating. But to be fair, that one linked above explained stuff pretty well, in a rational manner.

(Don't get worried about the cage material - again pros and cons with steel vs brass vs polymer, bit makes little difference on a push bike).

The biggest effect on performance will actually be

1 - is it installed properly, with the correct pre-load on the crank / bearings

2 - how not straight and parallel the bike is (not influenced by the actual bearings used)

3 - has water got into the bearing - as that fecks the performance or the grease, leads to messing up the lubrication, and with enough water (surprisingly little actually) causes corrosion thar leads to it.all going south
results.
For that reason, being in wet Britain, I try to buy hubs, headsets and BBs with stainless steel bearings.



(I used to work with bearings - or more regularly be investing why they'd failed in critical applications - though often with a half a million to a million Watts more being involved that the typical cyclist has !)

Most bearings will be pretty much the same. I have Enduro xd15 on my bad weather bike, but for general purposes I just use Enduro steel bearings. If you want extra speed, wash out the grease and use a lighter weight oil. Just don't expect them to last very long that way

Bearings are an industrial commodity. They are made to international standards (ISTM). Just get the proper size and seal type from a local bearing distributor (they are everywhere) or Amazon. Major brands to look for are SKF, NSK, Timken, etc. The demands of a bicycle pale in comparison to most industrial and automotive applications.

As far as quality, bearings are graded. ABEC 3 is fine for general use (most bike applications), ABEC 5 is hi-precision (premium), and ABEC 7 is overkill. If you plan to pedal at over 30,000RPM go with ABEC 9.

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A good non contact sealed bearing is best. Vv from nsk, llb/llu from ntn, r2z from skf, 2brs from fag. Any of these will be top shelf material.

I'm not sure this is entirely true given I think the last time I replaced a wheel bearing on a car I've owned was about 30 years ago on a car that was already 15 years old, and I'm constantly replacing bearings on my 5 bikes. Right now I've got 4 Enduro bearings sitting on my bench waiting to go into a freehub.

I don't know if this is all because of lightweight seals letting lots of contaminants in, more axial loads for bearings designed for radial loads, or what. But I'm hard on bike bearings.

I agree you're right in that we don't push bearings at any sort of real velocity, heat, etc. But in some way we're hard on them.

We tend to be hard on them in two main ways. Bike bearings are often selected as small as possible to save weight. The big issue though is contamination. Shielded bearings are often used (instead of sealed) to reduce drag, and very few bearings are designed to be flushed with fresh grease (my speedplays are the only bearings on my bike that can easily be regreased).

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
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