John Hurley wrote:
> Stimulated by the thread on headset brinelling, a quick internet search
> turned up a lot of information, including this interesting article:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/
>
> True brinelling is impact damage, in which the race material is pushed
> aside to form a crater around the ball bearing, without any loss of
> material. False brinelling has a similar appearance to the naked eye,
> but the mechanism is fretting, which involves wear and loss of material,
> with or without corrosion.
>
> The following paragraph, however, I couldn't quite follow, and wondered
> if someone could comment or clarify:
>
> "Until recently, bicycle headsets tended to suffer from false brinelling
> in the "straight ahead" steering positions, due to small movements
> caused by flexing of the fork. Good modern headsets incorporate a plain
> bearing to accommodate this flexing, leaving the ball race to provide
> pure rotational movement."
>
> The writer may have ventured out onto thin ice here.
>
Shimano headsets have inserts with a curved exterior which allow some
self alignment. This is supposed to take care of all the load bearing on
only a few bearings when the steerer flexes
-- mvg
Marten Gerritsen
Kiel Windeweer
Netherlands