Is this thread still active? I'll post my headset experience: I bought a new Sam Hillborne from Rivendell, assembled by them, in April of 2010. Within one month, the day after completing the Davis Double, I noticed that my headset was pitted, with a noticeable notch when the bars were turned straight ahead, thus requiring extra effort to turn away from straight ahead and spoiling the handling. Rivendell replaced the headset for me at no cost.
Within one year, after a month-long tour from the Bay Area to Oregon and back, the headset had pitted again. I didn't ask Riv to replace it for free since this one had lasted longer, and instead bought a Cane Creek headset from them and had a local mechanic (Stefan at Cycle Monkey in Albany, CA) install it for me. When he pulled the old headset out he showed me the pitting marks on the lower race. His theory what that because the "bearing keeper ring" (I have no idea what this is actually called but it holds the bearings in place while you are assembling the headset) was left in the headset when it was installed (he gave me the impression he would have removed it had he done the installation), that the same points on the bearings always contacted the exact same points on the race as the headset turned, accelerating wear. He felt that without the "keeper" in place they would have rolled more "randomly", slowing wear. Bottom line: since having the Cane Creek headset installed, I have had no problems. Note that I am somewhat of an abusive user; this bike gets ridden every day, is occasionally hopped up and (as gently as possible) ridden off curbs, often with a bag in the front basket, and it gets ridden on rough trails and fire roads from time to time. I think a lot of owners might put less wear on their bikes in one lifetime than I have each year. Daniel On Monday, April 2, 2012 6:30:12 AM UTC-7, shawn wrote: > > How many miles can one expect to get out of a typical headset and > bottom bracket? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rbw-owners-bunch/-/c9g_TLFj7kMJ. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
