One thing that has set the Zipp hub apart since the beginning has been the bearing design. Zipp is the only company in the world specifying Swiss made ball bearing cartridges, but these are not even standard Swiss made cartridges, they are highly specialized. Since most stock bearings of the size used in bicycle hubs come from the machine industry, they are invariably designed for higher rotational speeds and generally lower loading, and usually no shock loading. Working with a family-owned Swiss bearing manufacturer, Zipp is able to define certain key criteria to bearing smoothness and long life, and develop the finest cartridge bearing every introduced into the cycling industry.

To start with, standard bicycle bearings are usually toleranced at 50 millionths of an inch. This is done by blowing them up a graduated tube with air, and guarantees that all balls are within 50 millionths of an inch of each other in diameter, and any individual ball is round within that same 50 millionths of an inch spread. High precision balls utilized in most company’s high end products up this spec to 25 millionths of an inch to ensure better roundness of the balls, and ensure smoother rolling. Zipp ball bearings are specified to 10 millionths of an inch tolerance, guaranteeing that they are at least 2.5 times rounder and better matched than most company’s ‘high precision’ balls, and more than 5 times tighter than most ‘precision’ balls. The measurement reports below show two ‘round’ items, the first measuring 10 millionths round, the second 20 millionths round.

When we talk about ceramic bearings, we're talking about the best: Silicon Nitride (Si3N4) ceramic bearings that are more than 1,000 times rounder than any steel bearing, even the industry-leading ones we spec. Si3N4 bearings have an incredible maximum spin rating of 300,000 rpm under load and tolerances less than 2 millionths of an inch among the entire bearing set. Read More

Spoke Hole Impact Forming Technology is a radical manufacturing process. At the heart of SHIFT is a proprietary alloy called Z310.9 that’s nearly twice the strength and more crack resistant in hub flanges than the commonly used 6061 alloy. Read More

Electron Discharge Machining allows us to cut the materials for our rear hub drive internals after they’ve been hardened through heat treating, negating the warping and imprecision caused by the heat treating process. Read More