Autumn Blog Series: Episode 1: Understanding Your Bike's Bearings Before Autumn Hits Hard

As the leaves start falling and UK roads and trails transform into wet and muddy playgrounds, there's a component on your bike working overtime that most riders never think about until it fails: bearings. Whether you're new to cycling or you've been riding for years without paying much attention to what's spinning inside your bike, now's the time to understand these small but critical parts.

🍁 What Actually Are Bearings?🍁

Bearings are precision-engineered components that allow parts of your bike to rotate smoothly with minimal friction. They're essentially small balls (usually steel or ceramic) held in a ring or cage that sit between two surfaces that need to move relative to each other. Every pedal stroke, every turn of your bars, every rotation of your wheels—bearings make it all possible.

🍁Where Bearings Hide on Your Bike🍁

Your bike has bearings in more places than you might realize:

• Frame bearings sit at pivot points on full-suspension bikes. These take a beating from suspension movement, trail impacts, and the elements. Brands like Cube, Trek, Specialized and Amflow all use different bearing configurations in their suspension designs. Some bikes can have a low amount of bearings e.g. 4-6 whilst others can have 16!

• Headset bearings allow your fork to turn smoothly. Located at the top and bottom of your head tube, these bearings handle steering loads and take direct hits from potholes, trails etc with impact coming up through your fork.

• Wheel hub bearings keep your wheels spinning freely. Front and rear hubs each contain bearings that support your weight, handle braking forces, and deal with side loads through corners.

• Bottom bracket bearings support your cranks and handle every watt you put through the pedals, along with contamination caused by rain, dirt and mud.

• Pedal bearings allow your pedals to spin freely.

🍁Types of Bearings🍁

Most bikes use cartridge bearings - sealed units where the balls, races, and seals are all contained in one package.

These are identified by industry-standard numbers (like 6902, 61805, or MR2437) that tell you their exact dimensions.

Cartridge bearings come in different seal configurations. Some have rubber seals on both sides (marked 2RS), others have metal shields (marked 2Z), and premium options feature specialized low-friction seals.

The seal is your bearing's first line of defense against the outside world—and in autumn, that world is particularly hostile.

You may, also, encounter loose ball bearings in headsets or hubs, where individual balls sit in a cup and cone arrangement. These require more maintenance but can be adjusted for perfect smoothness when properly serviced.

🍁How to Know When Bearings Are Failing🍁

Healthy bearings are smooth, quiet, and almost invisible in operation. Your bike should feel effortless—wheels spin freely, steering is precise, and there's no play or grinding anywhere.

Warning signs appear gradually:

• Roughness - when you spin a wheel or turn your bars suggests contamination or wear inside the bearing. It might feel notchy or gritty rather than smooth.

 

• Play or looseness means the bearing has worn to the point where there's movement where there shouldn't be. Check by grabbing your wheel at the rim and trying to rock it side to side, or by holding your front brake and pushing the bike forward to feel for headset play.

 

• Noise is a late-stage symptom. Grinding or crunching noises from bearing areas means damage is already done. Bearings don't usually announce their decline—by the time they're noisy, they're well past their best.

 

• Resistance when spinning or turning indicates either over-tightened bearings or internal damage causing drag.

 

The challenge is that bearing deterioration happens slowly. You adapt to gradually increasing resistance or roughness without noticing. This is why regular checks matter, especially as we head into autumn when bearing stress intensifies.

🍁Why This Matters as Autumn Arrives🍁

Understanding bearings now, before the season really takes hold, gives you a baseline. You'll know what "normal" feels like on your bike, which makes spotting autumn-induced changes much easier.

Bearings are, also, one of the most cost-effective performance investments you can make. Fresh bearings transform how a bike feels—smoother, faster, more responsive. Yet they're often neglected until catastrophic failure forces attention. Ignoring bearings that are past their best not only compromises your safety but can, also, lead to damage to your other components - resulting in expensive repairs and replacement.

As roads and trails get wetter and muddier over the coming weeks, your bearings will face their toughest test of the year. Knowing what they are, where they live, and how they should feel is the foundation for keeping your bike running through whatever autumn throws at it.

 

In next week's blog, we'll look at exactly what autumn conditions do to these precision components—and why this season is so much harder on bearings than others.