Cycling and Ceramic Bearing Jockey or Pulley Wheels; Can A Couple Of Jockey Wheels Actually Improve Your Ride? You Won’t Believe The Answer!

I never thought I’d be so excited to write a post about jockey wheels, but such is the case… and spoiler alert, this isn’t a “ceramic bearings make you faster” kind of post. However…

A friend of mine gave me a set of Kogel hybrid ceramic bearing jockey wheels that he had no use for. They’d been used, it looked like one or maybe two rides, but they were immaculate other than a little bit of chain lube in a couple of corners of the teeth. Oh, and they were gold. Now, if you remember, I have nothing to put them on that would match as far as color scheme. However, as a stretch, I’ve got a gold 1,000 miles in a month stem cap on my Venge, so the argument could be made that they would work.

So, installed and with a perfect afternoon for a slow solo ride, I headed out. The first miles were nothing to write home about, but I was thankful I had some nice, blingy jockey wheels on the Venge, and that the stem cap finally matched with something else on the bike. On the sixth mile, I made a right turn, into the wind and downshifted to the baby ring just to see if that felt any different. The chain was skipping a little. I down shifted and the skipping stopped, upshifted and it intensified. I pulled over to the side of the road and flipped the bike, adjusting the barrel adjuster (which was odd), until the skipping stopped, then the chain was silent.

I flipped the bike over, expecting the shifting to be a complete, wonky mess. Mounted my steed, pedaled away, silently… and shifted.

I kid you not, the sun burst forth from a cloud and shone right onto my Venge. And me. Halleluiah, can I get an Amen?!

I shifted again, and again… and perfect was somehow made… better. A LOT better. I shifted to the big ring. Surely under more spring loaded pressure… and perfection-plus. I wasn’t faster, not that I could feel anyway, but shift quality was improved by at least 50% on a brand new derailleur and completely refurbished Ultegra drivetrain and a Dura Ace chain (with a 105 derailleur because you can’t buy new Ultegra 10-sp. derailleurs anymore). By the time I got home, I’d made the decision I was putting these on all our bikes, damn the cost! All of them! Gravel bikes, road bikes, rain bikes…

Then I looked up the cost for Kogel jockey wheels and walked that back. A lot. Oh, my. $200 for a set of the hybrid ceramic jockey wheels (this is the set my friend gave me). $300 for the full ceramic bearing set. It’d be more than $1,000 in jockey wheels for all of the bikes I want them on… and that’s not an exaggeration.

Maybe just the tandem and my Trek 5200… and my wife’s Assenmacher. That’s only $600. Gulp. Believe it or not, I actually think they’re worth it…