ZeroDrag Bearings are designed to be the 'best of the class' for every skating category; racing, hockey, competitive, or fitness. Although constructed with a number of advanced innovations, ZeroDrag Bearings are still remarkably competitive in price. Tack on the design features described on this page and you’re skating at the max from recreational workouts to record-breaking speed times.
ZeroDrag Bearings incorporate advanced design in 5 vital bearing component areas. These factors directly affect skating performance.
Raceway Finish
ZeroDrag Bearings feature raceways that are 2 1/2 times smoother than those built into other brands. Result: less drag and faster skating!
Raceway Depth
ZeroDrag raceways are substantially deeper producing long-lasting superior performance. Significantly more effective for skating maneuvers such as making crossover strides and split second hockey turns.
Ball Grade
The surface finish and roundness of the ball. The lower the grade number, the better it is. ZeroDrag balls register in grades 5 through 10. Other bearings’ balls range from 17 through 28. Bottom line we have better balls!!!!
Seals
The coverings of the bearing. Zero Drag Bearings use non-contact double-sided buna-rubber seals which are easily removed and replaced for cleaning. These seals keep out most contaminants and are designed to eliminate ball contact.
Lubricant
ZeroDrag ZX312 lubricant is an exclusive space age oil with a heavy rust inhibitor. The oil is extremely lightweight, maintains exceptionally long life and is environmentally safe…even while providing unparalleled smoothness.
ABEC rating
Using guidelines by the ABMA (American Bearing Manufacturers Association), ABEC (Annular Bearing Engineering Council) is an industrial standard for allowable tolerance of ring dimensions. ABEC has virtually nothing to do with speed or the quality of the process or materials used. In the inline world, the tolerances of the ID and OD are not critical given the precision of the axles and frames are dominate in this aspect. The only argument (and it's weak) of any benefit would be in the Radial Runout, but realistically the precision of an ABEC-7 bearing makes less of a difference to a skater traveling 20 miles an hour than to a heavy machine with parts spinning at 10,000 rpm. The key to inline performance is really how well the raceways are super-finished, quality of balls, oil used, type of retainer and seal design. These properties are not addressed by the ABEC specification and areas where ZeroDrag bearings are unsurpassed.
ABEC is a tricky topic in the sports bearing world. The problem is that skaters love having the ABEC number to use as a guide. Unfortunately there's a lot of smoke and mirrors in the world around the ABEC rating and what it means to performance. We would prefer to not even mention ABEC because it's so far out of control and not really meaningful to skate bearing performance.
When manufactured correctly there is no evidence to suggest that bearings with a higher or lower ABEC rating will allow you to skate any faster. Other brands typically just use the ABEC as advertising hype. Although there are other brands out there promoting good inline bearings, there tnds to be a lot of misinformation out there as well. Inline skaters take their sport seriously; as a manufacturer of high performance sports bearings, ZeroDrag does as well. ZeroDrag specifies and controls every aspect of the process from concept to finished parts, but does not use the ABEC rating on our inline skate bearings.
ABEC specification for 608 Bearings
Dimension ABEC 1 ABEC 3 ABEC 5 ABEC 7
(d)=(ID)= Inner Diameter .3150 (8mm) .0003 (.008mm) .0003 (.007mm) .0002 (.005mm) .00016 (.004mm)
D=(OD)= Outer Diameter .8661 (22mm) .0004 (.009mm) .0003 (.008mm) .00024 (.006mm) .0002 (.005mm)
B= Width .2756 (7mm) .0047 (.120mm) .0047 (.120mm) .0016 (.040mm) .0016 (.040mm)
Radial Run out ABEC 1 ABEC 3 ABEC 5 ABEC 7
IR (inner ring) .0004 (.010mm) .0002 (.006mm) .00016 (.004mm) .0001 (.0025mm)
OR (outer ring) .0006 (.015mm) .0004 (.009mm) .00024 (.006mm) .00016 (.004mm)