Ceramic Ball Bearings(also called Hybrid Ceramic Ball Bearings). Bearings are rated in two distinct ways: Ball Grade and Bearing Race Grade.
Race Grade has ABEC-1, ABEC-3, ABEC-5, ABEC-7, ABEC-9(the bigger the number, the better quality bearings).
Ball Grade(short for G) has G300, G25, G10, G5, G4, G3(the smaller the number, the better quality balls). Ball grade is a rating of the individual ceramic balls, and a measurement of the roundness of the balls. This is
the most important rating of a bearing. Mentime, race quality, grease, seal performance & retainer type would follow that in terms of what impacts the speed of a bearing.
Our current Ceramic bearings use G5 balls. This means the ball is round to 5 millionths of an inch. It could make the bearing faster and much more durable!
ABEC :: The purpose of the ABEC committee (Annular Bearing Engineers Committee) is to establish dimensions, tolerances, geometry, and noise standards for bearings in an attempt to aid industrial bearing
manufacturers and users in the production, comparison and selection of bearings.
ABEC is often misunderstood and thought to be the "defining" rating in a bearing. ABEC simply refers to the overall tolerance of the bearing. Tolerances control the dimensional accuracy of the bearing. This rating is
useful for industries where high RPMs (10,000 or more) are used such as machinery.
Please be noted, a better ABEC rating does not impact the speed of the bearing in bicycle applications. On the same note, some bicycle bearing manufacturers listed ABEC 7/9 bearings as their main selling point.
While the ABEC 7/9 tolerance is tighter than an ABEC 1/3/5 rated bearing, the speed of the bearing will not be any faster. In terms of cost, there is small difference between the ABEC tolerances in our manufacturing.
But remember tolerance does not effect the speed of the bearing for cycling as even ABEC-1 or ABEC-3 is fine for bicycle bearings. It is used so that manufactures can match the tolerance needed to their product
(machinery, tools, etc.). A piece of machinery spinning at 10,000+ RPMs would require a high ABEC rating, such as ABEC 9.
For cycling a rating of ABEC-3 is exceptional. We’ve found ABEC-3 to more than serve our purposes of making the fastest ceramic bearing solution for cycling.
We currently manufacture bearings with ABEC-1 and ABEC-3.
Our G5 balls and ABEC-3 tolerance, combined with the high quality race, retainer and seals make our Ceramic Ball Bearings one of the best combinations of performance and value!