Make your carbon wheels faster (with a simple upgrade)

In this video expert mechanic upgrades my ICAN Aero 50 Chinese carbon wheels for $320 USD. The focusing will be on the bearings, which became a limiting factor after a few thousand KM of riding. Aaron will show you what's involved in removing and adding the bearings to wheels. I'll also share some speed data to demonstrate the bikes ability to acquire more speed with the better bearings. In this case it's the Winspace T1500.

#Carbon #wheels

[peteransel]

The take away, is that Aaron is a national treasure! Probably one of the top 100 mechanics worldwide. Chapeau!

[xocoyotl]

It took me 11 minutes to find out this guy is an absolute genious. I wish he was my local mechanic.

[hansschmidt]

damn... i could watch this craftsman all day long. wish i had a guy like this in my small town.

[sb_]

Love watching a pro mechanic at work. Nice set of tools.

[renegodde]

Ceramic bearings are designed to excel at applications doing 10000 rpm and way more. No bearing on a bike will get anywhere near that, not even your wheel hubs on a 100 km/h mountain downhill. So they‘re basically a waste of money and any proper steel bearing (NTN or such) will do as well. If you‘re looking for extra performance, you‘d need to take out the seals and remove the grease to replace it wirh oil. And pray that it never rains during any of your rides… 😂

[chrisyoung]

ICAN is advertising "Equipped with top-tier Japanese sealed EZO bearings" in the Aero line now. They are steel but supposed to be a very good bearing.

[tomigun]

This really highlights the value of these ICANN wheels - identical performance to the Hypers at 1/2 $$$

[williamforbes]

i really enjoy the dual talk videos feel like i take something into the real world every time. cheers.

[daveeastcott]

Holy crap it's Aron! G'day bruv! Looking well!

[daviddjerassi]

What a great team Aaron really can tune a bike to get the max from it what a shame that was a top class shop closing down we all wish Aaron good luck with opening his own shop., Thanks Cam / RCA another valued video.

[Alan_Hans__]

The only reason to put ceramic bearings on a bike are to make ceramic bearing companies money. Steel ones like genuine NTN will outlast the ceramic and after a very short time will be freer spinning. Ceramic bearings aren't designed to be in a shockloaded environment. The only bearings in a bike that aren't susceptible to shock loads are the jockey wheels and the benefits gained there are probably in the $2000/W range. In other words it's only a tiny fraction of a watt that you can save.

[ryanS]

I have a set of ICAN’s on my gravel bike. They’re strong and pretty smooth. It was a budget build for the most part and didn’t want to break the bank

[hockysa]

Once the ceramic bearing wears out after about 500km they’re worse than steel bearings with 10, 000km on them.

I wish the ceramic bearings could have a ceramic race or a surface coating to match the hardness of the ceramic bearing to prevent the hardness of the ceramic wearing into the steel race.

[jascollinscork]

Interesting video guys 👌🏼 this guy is a top class mechanic ❤

[morneauh]

Imagine the profit margin on those bearings. Manufacturing cost must be well below one dollar. No wonder your bike shop won't charge you anything to install them, I'm shure they give their retailer healthy margin. Would be nice to see a comparison with a high quality NTN or SKF bearing made in Japan.

[cxbkpmf]

Awesome Cam, you're having all the fun, leave some for the rest of us 😀👍

[mikekelly]

I find ceramic bearings die really fast. Literally 500kms and you can hear them grinding. Steel might not be as fast, but they feel just as nice, for a lot longer.

[marshall]

quick question, have you looked into the advantages of ceramic vs steel, i went to a bearing specialist and asked about ceramic bearings and was told that a cyclist will never get the bearing spinning fast enough to get any benefit from them, any feedback?

[David..]

One of those cycling products that goes into the “people are delusional” category of cycling product, just between the ceramic headsets and over sized pulley wheels.

[lovenottheworld]

Could the drag have been just that shield thing that he took out.