At 08:18 AM 02/02/2008 -0500, Barb & Dan Artley wrote:
>Peter Weigle once told me that needle bearing headsets (which I love)
>sometimes compromise that ability. Once changed over to a ball bearing
>headset, the perfect no hands tracking came back.
Could that be because these needle bearing headsets have more friction than ball bearing ones and act like they're "tight"? I just had a good look at a Stronglight A9 headset I have and the needles look cylindtical, not conical like the rollers in a true taper roller bearing. With a taper roller bearing the surfaces of the cups and cones and the axes of the rollers all converge at a single point. The surfaces of these needle roller headsets are all parallel and the needles only roll at one point on their surface and skid on the rest. I bet it's this extra friction that delays the front wheel from immediately steering in the direction the bike wants to tip.
John Betmanis
Woodstock, Ontario
Canada