Time for the summer refurb of the winter bike, an elderly Bianchi Sempre from 2013, which gets beaten to death all winter, and because I am a rebel and won't use mudguards has a hard life with grit and spray. Somewhat to my surprise, the bottom bracket, done this time last year, was still A1, but the steering head was notchy, to say the least.
So, I took the forks out and examined the head-bearings. FSA, probably Orbit, but the top end was fine. Just replace the bottom one then? Not so simple. It looked like a crown race and caged bearing setup. Didn't look too bad, but rough bearings never do. Tiny ball bearings. Where will I get those? And the crown race looks awful, on closer inspection.
To cut a long story short, I had various goes at getting bearings and even got a replacement FSA crown race, which was too big. So, give up and surrender to LBS (Fishface Cycles at Wombourne). Took it over in semi-dismantled state thinking he would have to order in a new headset and it would take time.
He spotted my mistake straight away. It wasn't a crown race and loose bearing system at all. It was a sealed bearing that had completely disintegrated! And he had one in stock and fixed it for me there and then.
The moral of this story is, I suppose, if you don't know what you are doing, then get help from a good LBS.
