The Cane Creek integrated headset fitted to my S-Works Epic is turning out to be complete cr*p and seizing on a regular basis. Can anyone recommend a decent replacement? I'm kinda lost with these new-fangled integrated ones.
Why Specialized chose to stick a 20 quid headset in a 2 grand frame I don't know.
FSA do some absolutely fantastic internal headsets (zero stack). One of the units in particular uses the same type of bearing as Chris King. The others use very high quality angular contact bearings with awesome sealing. I would highly recommend.
You just need to double check whether you need shallow cup or deep cup zero stack headsets. My Giant takes shallow cups and it really didnt like having a deep cup headset forced into it :o)
I've just had it apart to see if I can squeeze some grease into the bearings.
It looks like there are a couple of 'races' inserted into the head tube, both about 5mm inside. Above these there are cartridge bearings pressed directly into the head tube. So the races appear to simply be there to make the bearings sit just inside the head tube.
The headset top race and bottom race are then running directly on the cartidge bearings and have bugger all in the way of seals.
So I've need to get the existing bearings ripped out first and find a headset the uses the same style to work with the 'races' pressed into the head tube.
I wonder if I can get some reducers pressed in to run a normal headset? I have a Hope on another bike and that appears to be bullet proof so wouldn't mind fitting one of them. I run 20mm of spacers below the stem so I've got a bit of room to play with.
