Headset noise? Throw money at it!

[RustyIron]

The symptom is noise from the headset. Specifically, when it's slammed HARD, the creaking noise is very off-putting. Regular servicing hasn't helped. It's an "integrated headset," which is really a cheezy engineering solution, but it's what I'm stuck with. The bike is a year old and has 2000 miles on it. It's been making this noise for a couple months, and it's time to put an end to it.

The bike was built with Cane Creak's entry-level product. After a little investigation, I found the Cane Creak Hellbender, which is supposed to be better. A little more investigation revealed that the Hellbender isn't as good as the Cane Creak 110. I was confused. Why would I spend extra on the Hellbender, when it's not as good as a 110? And how could I buy a "good" headset from the company that built my "junk" headset? They all look the same. It's confusing.

And then there is Chris King. That boy got started as a response to all the shoddy headsets on the market. He made a bazillion bucks, so he must be doing SOMETHING right. Right? I took my handful of chips, set 'em on the Come Line, and rolled the dice.

This afternoon a uniformed employee of the United States Government showed up at my front door and dropped off a nondescript cardboard box. The following pictures reveal the contents. Whadaya think? Should I have saved my cash and just bought another Cane Creak? Did I invest wisely in my bike's future?

Lay it on me. I won't get a chance to install this until next week.

 

[Jackware]

As long as you use the correct tools you'll be fine

 

[steve_sordy]

I love the use of the spelling in Cane Creak.

 

[2WheelsNot4]

Blingy CK content, whats not to love

 

[RustyIron]

Finally had a few minutes to devote to the bike this afternoon, so I slapped in the Chris King headset. Only time will tell if it's any better than the original from the factory. My only testing was to ride it up and down the street, and to hit the curbs at about 6 mph while keeping the wheel weighted. As expected, there was some bike noise, but not the loud crack that I would have got previously.

Here's a couple pics of the old and new parts. On the old bearings was noticeable abrasion from movement of parts where there should be no movement. On the bottom (big) bearing, I could measure no difference between the old and new bearings. On the top bearing, there was 0.0015" difference between the two.

There is a big difference in the bearing caps. The King appears to maintain tighter tolerances and is less dependent on o-ring centering. The baseplate is also substantially different. You'll notice that the King is a rigid, machined piece. The Cane Creak is more like stamped sheet metal, and there's even a gap in the surface. It doesn't inspire confidence that it will resist bending and deformation. Bending and deformation create noise and wear. But like I said, only time will tell if the King is better.

The last pic is a driver that I whipped up. A precision made baseplate shouldn't be installed by beating into place with a hammer. I took a chunk of pipe longer than my steerer tube, faced an end, then cut an angle steeper than the angle on the baseplate. Sorry for the chatter, but I didn't want to change tooling and it didn't really matter, other then aesthetics.

If there's any noteworthy observations in the performance, I'll report it here.