Comments on: Big Wheel Evolution?

By: George Krpan

George Krpan — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:22:24 +0000

Retro-grouches make me grouchy.

By: Cloxxki

Cloxxki — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:27:31 +0000

King will just do what they always do : launch a standard of their own, suiting their convenience. They did it with the Perdido intergrated headset, and will do it againn now with 1 1/4″ headsets, which they did offer for some time after Fisher had been pushing that.

By: Guitar Ted

Guitar Ted — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:39:04 +0000

BearSquirrel: My example is the new Yeti carbon AS-R bike that uses a standard Shimano outboard bearing, but it’s inside the BB shell. My bet is that soon we will see a “Madone” approach, (which is closely related to what Cannondale does with their SI bottom brackets) and the cup will altogether be eliminated. Another example is Crank Brothers new headsets which are nothing more than bearing races and bearings with no “cup” in the traditional sense.

Of course, all this “new” stuff is really old. The direct placement of bearings on the frame is a trick used by old racing bikes from the 30’s and 40’s, which usually did this with head set bearings.

Vandal: I’d be surprised if Chris King went the way of the dodo bird, because not everyone is going to buy into the “new” ways. Of course there will always be lots of custom builders and old frames about that will be needing traditional headsets too. Think about how many OE King headsets there are. Not many! King does most of their business aftermarket, and I suspect that will always be the case.

By: Vandal

Vandal — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:45:08 +0000

Examples of the steerer tube changes and integrated bb bearings can be seen on the Trek Madone.
The lower headtube cup is 1.5″ while the top is the standard 1.125″. This addresses the stress riser created at the junction of the fork crown/steerer tube.
The Madone also captures what would be the external bb cups in the carbon bb shell. The carbon is now molded to act as the seat for the cartrige bearings rather than having a metal cup for that purpose. The crank bolt pulls everything snug and play-free.

In the case of the head tube, plenty of mtb manufacturers have started a trend towards integrated headsets. Does this spell the end for Chris King?

By: MMcG

MMcG — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:31:52 +0000

I think the new Pivot Cycles (Chris Cocalis and Dave Weagle) mountain bikes witll have this type of “inboard” bearing bottom bracket set up.

By: martini

martini — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:25:41 +0000

Take a look see at what Wolfhound cycles has done for one example. Browsing through Eurobike photos I also saw this application on road bikes. Smart move in my mind. Should prove to be a much stiffer interface.

By: BearSquirrel

BearSquirrel — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:54:26 +0000

What is an example of inboard bearing bottom bracket shells?

By: Cloxxki

Cloxxki — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:06:22 +0000

I know for a fact that one key manufacturer is looking into that head tube thing, and has been for at least over a year. Patience, but it WILL happen that way in the future.