Cane Creek adds two new levels to their headset family – a new top-tier 110 Ceramic for when you want a headset that will outlast your bike, and the 50 for when you need high-quality bearings but don’t want to spend a ton of cash. Yet even though Cane Creek was the company that actually brought us all the threadless headset three decades ago, and their naming standard 15 years ago, they still fight to make it easy to pick the perfect headset for your bike. A new Headset Code-Breaking Guide hopes to clear things up a bit…
Cane Creek 110 Ceramic ultra-premium lifetime headsets
Cane Creek’s 110 line was already pretty premium. Until this week, they called it “the finest headset [they] make” and “the last headset you will ever have to buy.” Well, throw that out the window, cause there’s a new finest headset on the block. And it gets ceramic bearings and some even fancier finishing.
The new 110 Ceramic (Cane Creek also calls it the 11O Ceramic, just because they like the way that O looks) features a new set of Hellbender Ceramic bearings inside to take “ultimate smoothness and longevity” to the next level. Those are hybrid ceramics, with coated 440C stainless steel races and ceramic Silicon Nitride balls that are “multiple times harder than steel and will not corrode”. Plus, the headsets get extra seals.
Just like the previous all-steel 110, these new headsets come with Cane Creek’s lifetime original owner 110 Guarantee. They’ll replace any part of it if you are ever not satisfied with how it performs, making these truly lifetime headsets.
What’s new here besides those ceramic balls, the 110 Ceramic features a new look with 2-stage black & silver anodizing to show off some new machined grooves to the upper cup and top caps. They also come with matching machined-out, snap-together Interlok headset spacers (1×10 & 2x5mm) and a lightweight carbon-friendly compression ring for a tidy cockpit setup.
110 Ceramic Tech Details
- machined 7075-T6 aluminum cups, top cover & top cap
- Hellbender Ceramic sealed cartridge bearings
- sealing: steerer tube o-ring seal, dual-lip top cover lip seal, co-molded crown race dual-lip seal
- features carbon-friendly compression ring retained in top bearing cover
- available in black-only, with dual-stage silver anodized cuts
- features laser-etched graphics, including its headset code for easy identification
- includes 3 matching machined-out Interlok spacers (2x5mm, 1x10mm)
- includes a lightweight preload assembly (in place of a conventional steel star nut)
- Headset IDs: IS41/IS52 | IS42/IS52 | ZS44/EC44 | ZS44/ZS56
- Stack Heights: IS41 & IS42 upper : 9mm | EC34 upper: 15mm, lower: 11mm | ZS44 & ZS56 upper : 8mm, lower: 4mm | EC44 lower: 11mm
- 110 Lifetime Guarante
New Cane Creek Fifty / 50 headsets for the more budget-conscious cyclist
The new Fifty headsets basically give you the same trusted performance of Can Creek’s no-nonsense Forty headsets, but with a bit more of a premium look. Inside, it’s the same reliable but affordable zinc-coated headset bearing tech – promising “corrosion resistance similar to that of stainless steel, but at a fraction of the cost“. But with a little extra outer machining, these are minutely lighter, but more importantly, they look cooler for just a few bucks more.
Fifty / 50 tech details
- machined 6061-T6 aluminum cups & top cover
- ZN40 sealed cartridge bearings, zinc-coated for corrosion resistance
- sealing: Steerer tube o-ring seal, low friction top cover lip seal, co-molded crown race lip seal
- features carbon-friendly compression ring retained in top bearing cover
- available only in black
- features laser-etched graphics, including its headset code for easy identification
- Headset IDs: EC34/EC34 | IS41/IS52 | IS42/IS52 | ZS44/EC44 | ZS44/ZS56 | ZS56/ZS56
- Stack Heights: IS41 & IS42 upper : 9mm | EC34 upper: 15mm, lower: 11mm | ZS44 & ZS56 upper : 8mm, lower: 4mm | EC44 lower: 11mm
New Good – Better – Best headset pricing & availability
So Cane Creek obviously puts the new 110 Ceramic into their best category, and the new 50 is a second-tier in their good category. But how does their pricing compare to the standard 110, Hellbender 70 & 40?
The new Cane Creek 110 Ceramic headset ranges in price from $200-$225 vs. the slightly more affordable 110 with stainless steel bearings at $144-176.
The new Fifty at $74-95 is slightly more expensive than the $53-96 of the Forty, but still more affordable than the Hellbender 70s at $100-120.
Get them all now, from your local bike shop or straight from Cane Creek.
New Code-Breaking Headset Guide
Oh, how I long for fewer standards in the bike industry. Today, even picking the simple headset can be confusing, what with at least 3 cup styles, so many headset bores, and at least three main steerer tube sizes. We’ve even been covering Cane Creek trying to simplify things with a headset finder for 15 years!
“Back in 2010, Cane Creek introduced the Standardized Headset Identification System (SHIS) – a pioneering effort to establish a unified classification system by which we describe all modern headsets.”
That’s still how we measure and reference headsets, but the model names get pretty long. So Cane Creek is trying to make it simpler again. This new streamlined Headset Code-Breaking Guide is a simple poster made for bike shops to hang on the wall. But it’s also a simple graphic to help the DIY home mechanic be sure to get the right fit, too. (Download the full-size image from Cane Creek.)
