If you're looking to extract every last bit of performance from your Campagnolo Record-equipped bike, you've gotta become a stickler for details. Most folks riding Record have already given extensive thought to bike fit, to aerodynamics, and to bike weight. By tending to those details you leave yourself with only one final concern: mechanical resistance. Reducing the drag in your bearings is a refinement that befits the bike of your dreams, since the bike of your dreams should maximize your speed for a given power output. Upgrading your bearings from stainless steel to ceramic is the leading way to reduce mechanical resistance. The roundness and hardness of ceramic bearings allow them to spin with freedom unheard of in stainless. There's a reason why ProTour teams are loading up their bikes with ceramic bearings & pulleys with the same enthusiasm that F1 and Indy Car teams are retrofitting their cars to ceramics. Sure, they're expensive, but goodness gracious they make a difference.

The Record Ultra Torque crankset/bottom bracket system is unique in one important respect: Unlike Shimano or FSA, the Record Ultra Torque BB bearings aren't housed in the BB cups themselves. Rather, since each crankarm has a BB spindle molded into it, the bearings are pre-pressed by Campagnolo at the spindle/arm interface. Each interface has one bearing. It's a supremely tight fit, and removing the stock bearings and pressing on ceramic bearings isn't something effortlessly accomplished. It's for this reason that we can only offer a ceramic bearing upgrade as part of a combined Campagnolo Ultra Torque Crankset/BB purchase. We remove the stock bearings and press the ceramic bearings onto the crankarms here at Competitive Cyclist.

Our ceramic bearings are Grade 5 -- the highest quality ceramic bearings available in the marketplace. An added benefit is that both sides of our bearings have seals. The stock Campy bearings don't have seals (in order to reduce drag). Rather, Campy equips the crankset with one seal on the spindle 3mm away from the bearing, and another seal on the BB cup itself. Our ceramic bearings are sealed on both sides, giving them excellent longevity. You can rest assured that by upgrading to the performance benefits of ceramics, you aren't giving up on component durability.

With each purchase you'll get a complete Record Ultra Torque Carbon crankset in the crankarm length of your choosing with 53/39 chainrings, a Record Ultra Torque bottom bracket in the threading of your choosing. We'll install one ceramic BB bearing on each crankarm, and we'll also send you the original Campagnolo bearings.

Our friends at Campagnolo asked us to clearly state that retrofitting your crankset with aftermarket bearings voids your warranty coverage from them. In order to give you peace of mind, though, Competitive Cyclist will offer our own warranty for your crankset. The warranty length is 3 years (identical to the warranty length offered by Campagnolo for Record components) for the original purchaser of the crankset.