The easiest check is to pull the wheel from the bike, remove the dust covers if they are easy to remove and spin the axle with your fingers. You’re looking for a rough/gritty feel or listen for dry bearings (you will hear a swishy sound to stay fully scientific. If the bearings are dry or contaminated, you will need to service them. Here is a manual.

This is definitely a job that we recommend being done by a professional. Even more so than bottom brackets, replacing wheel bearings requires expensive precision tools and because almost no two hubs are the same, it often requires for you to figure things out on the fly. Removing a rear axle while both bearings are pressed in the hub as well as on the axle, requires some experience.

While hourly rates vary greatly from one shop to another, this total job should take around 60 minutes for an experienced mechanic.

A high-quality ceramic bearing is the more developed brother of a stock bearing: races are hardened and polished to a mirror finish, balls are more perfectly round than any steel ball can ever be and we spent a lot of time perfecting our grease and seals to perform best in any given conditions.

In the words of US National Downhill Champion Neko Mulally: “you don’t really feel the difference between a good and a bad bearing, it is reflected in your race time at the end of the day. As a rider I do nothing differently and go faster"

We have designed the two bearing types so you can pick the ones that best suit your environment. Both are the best we can deliver, just in different ways: the cross seals offer best protection for riding on unpaved terrain and wet roads. The road seals offer lowest friction for use on primarily dry roads.