Yesterday some listmember mentioned the use of ceramic balls in NR hubs. I have recently read that when using anything better than grade 25 matched bearings in a fine hub like the NR, the weak point in terms of resistance would not be the ball bearings but the cone and cup. It seems to make sense that you couldn't use up 10 watts of energy in a couple of hubs and a bottom bracket, so once again we are reminded that in the advertising world figures don't lie but liers figure.
So I went over to my bike built on NR hubs and gave the wheel a spin. It was very comforting to watch the wheel turn and slow to a stop and then turn back in the other direction, again and again and again and again. If the technological world is looking for its next huge breakthrough in the realm of cycling, it will probably have to be something related to genetic engineering ... the bikes themselves haven't seen anything so major as the advertising copy would have you believe in quite a few decades.
Garth Libre in Miami Fl USA