Upgraditis #1

Bargain Hunt

Ah, there it was. After going to all the trouble of packing my headset with grease and wrapping it in rubber to help keep the elements out, I still hankered after a well sealed headset that didn't need cuddling away in a rubbery blanket. Something a bit more UK friendly.

The Old

Open races inside a Big Fat Pig

FSA Big Fat Pig 1.5". On my life, these are genuine weights of the headset components:

Lower cup - 150g
Upper cup - 160g
Cap - 40g

Total - 350g.

Zoiks, Scoob!

The New

Orbit Xtreme L to R - cap, wedge, top cup & bearing, bottom cup & bearing, crown race.
Unashamedly borrowed from sicklines.com, I can no longer take a photo of mine, its on a bike.

FSA Orbit Xtreme 1.5". A little more svelte at 218g.

Because You're Worth It

Was it worth the swap? Well, the Pig has:

• Planet sized steel balls in open races - tough (because so large), yet at the same time, will melt at the first sign of moisture.
• Steel cups
• Steel crown race & top race
• Alloy cap

In fairness, if you lived in Moab or some other similarly arid climate it would be absolutely fine. However, there was no real attempt (beyond the two moderately ineffective rubber seals) to keep water out. It survived intact by being completely full of grease and covered with an old inner tube. Not exactly maintenance free, to be honest, and needed to be regularly stripped down & regreased.

And being made of solid steel, something of a boat anchor.

The Orbit Xtreme has:

• Standard 6808 cartridge bearings with seals.
• Extra rubber seals
• Alloy cups
• Alloy race
• Alloy top cap & wedge

The top cap is sealed to the steerer with an O ring and actually forms a labyrinth seal over the top bearing, which is nice. The crown race fits inside the bottom cup and holds the extra rubber seal pressed against the cartridge bearing. Which then has its own seal. All things considered its a far better mousetrap than the Pig although at double RRP it bloody well should be!

How to remove the old headset

Fairly straightforward process, which involves a hammer - always fun.

Also needed, a steel drift (i.e. a large, old, flat blade screwdriver).

1. Pull the fork from your bike.
2. Hold the fork securely.
3. Taking a large flat blade screwdriver, and a lump hammer, tap the crown race off the fork. The trick is to give a couple of taps in one place, then move round 180 degrees and give a few taps there. Keep tapping (even if it doesn't look like it is moving) and fairly soon it will start to worm its way up the steerer tube.
4. Take frame, rest it (so that the headtube is vertical) on something that won't damage it. I just use a block of wood with a towel on the top.
5. Don't rest the headset on the wood, you're going to be knocking it out. You have to rest the downtube/toptube.
6. Taking the drift (or screwdriver) and your hammer, tap the cup out of the frame. The trick (again) is to give a couple of taps in one place, then move round a bit, and give a couple more taps. With the cups, you don't have anything getting in the way so you can do this at 90 degree intervals, which works a bit better.
7. Insert new headset: Like this