chris king headsets — on and on and on
Posted by phillip Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:50:00 GMT
mine, today.
fortunately i was wise enough not to get it in anodized blue, which at the time was second only in hipness to “3d violet”.
as a hommage to the great craftmanship, and the amazing 1996 bike-pro buyers guide, here’s their page on the “king cycles” headsets:
»After several years of research, Chris King began making his headsets available to the public. That was over ten years ago.
aah, the classic.
His headsets incorporate the highest level of craftsmanship and performance in a segment of bicycle parts that had been seriously overlooked. The fork race is made of stainless steel to resist corrosion and machined to make a perfect seat for the bearing. The race is cut and polished to receive the inner dimension of a sealed bearing cartridge. The upper and lower bearing cups are machined aluminum then turned to tight tolerances that fit snugly and squarely into the head tube. There is an upper adjusting nut, which would be called an upper cone race in a traditional ball bearing headset, and head lock nut. Both the adjusting nut and the head lock nut begin as machined aluminum pieces. They are then turned and machined, to create the threads for the steerer tube as well as precisely squared surfaces for installation tools.
this is what the NoThreadSet looks like today.
All the alloy pieces are machined from 7075- T651 aluminum, then anodized. For the bearings, both cups have stainless steel precision sealed bearing cartridges pressed into them. King Cycles makes these bearings so they will handle the horizontal load on what is traditionally a vertically loaded bearing. They are well shielded from moisture using a metal seal, (not rubber or nylon) and should provide years of life, if not the permanent solution to anyone’s headset problems. They come in three stack height sizes, Standard European 43.5mm, a Short Stack Japanese 34.0mm, and a BMX size that is also used for pre- ‘91 Yeti framesets. The 1” Short Stack headset weighs 109 grams. All Chris King headsets are available in Blue, Black, Red, Silver or 3DV (Violet/Lavender).«