Cane Creek 1/18th Threadless headset. Cheapest model.

So let me just set a scene here;

Time after time i hear the words 'Is it really worth me spending £20-30-40+ on a headset?!' so i spent a little of my money today and 'invested' into the 'el-cheapo' Cane Creek headset. Depending on where you shop around for it, it'll be between £7 - £12.

The headset in question is this one



I fitted this headset to a 24/7 Dark Angel frameset, running an Identiti Jury rigid fork. I fitted it to this bike, as being rigid i could tell in the fasted time just how good/bad this headset will be, as there is no suspension to compensate the stress! In the interest of fairness, i re-faced my frame with a proper Park Tool facer, and also did the crown of the fork so everything was absolutely 110%.

When fitting the headset i used good quality copper and ceramic greases, again to insure the best possible performance out of this little headset. Inital thoughts on the packaging was good, little plastic bag and cardboard top, so i imediatly thought 'yep i'm paying for the headset, not the packaging!' definatly a good thing when they are just this cheap. This headset isn't a sealed headset nor is it oversized bearings and you'd usually find this kind of headset on your sub £150 bikes that run Ahead systems.

So, for the testing.. I've not ridden this bike in about 4-5 months, so the amount i could abuse it was going to be limited! However, after setting it all up perfectly, getting the preload right i set out on my mission. After a few manuals and bunnyhops and little 3-4 stair sets i was warming up to the bike again, and was time to give it a little more abuse to see exactly how this headset was going to perform.

I moved onto a 6 stair set, spent some time just manualling down it, then jumped it a few times, then just messed about with bunnyhops. Things turned bad from then on in, i felt a little clunk, yet there was no play, quickly popped off my stem and dropped the forks, and the bearing race was still in one peice, i got the preload right and carried on again. 20 minutes later, the clunking was really starting to cheese me off, so i decided to move on and set about my ride home. However once i'd got out the saddle, stood up and put the power down, pulling the bike from side to side to increase the speed, i could feel play, sideways!

Got home, stripped it all down, and it was just all bad news. The bearings where they are low quality had beaten into the headset cups and just given it really bad pitting. Basically, wrote the headset off.

So, in 4 hours use on a nice sunny hot day it was a goner! I wouldn't even take this headset anywhere near offroad because its not sealed and it'll just eat up the grit and rip itself to peices internally.

In a summary, i'd never buy one again nor would i recommend it to anyone unless it was a situation where they wanted to sell a cheap bike and the old headset was knackered for example. Goes to show really, you do have to pay a few pennies to get something to last more then 4 hours of rather gentle use! I'd recommend spending sorta £20 minimum and getting a FSA Pig or something simular if you're on a budget.

Cheers for reading again, i had fun spending my time on this little cheapy, and i hope this might help you in some way or form in the future!