Tapered headsets come in a multitude of sizes and shapes these days. Luckily, you can get a Chris King Headset no matter what head tube dimension your frame designer chooses to use. The Chris King Tapered NoThreadSet w/ GripLock will marry a tapered fork to a frame with a tapered head tube, and you'll get the exacting perfection that you'd expect from a King headset. While it may seem odd since the upper and lower bearings are of two different sizes, this headset uses two traditional external cups that house the bearings outside of the head tube bore. The upper cup is their standard 1-1/8" sealed bearing unit. What is different from past headsets is that it employs a GripLock bearing cap. Chris King's GripLock upper bearing cap uses a new compression ring design. This assembly replaces the older style, one-piece bearing cap that contained the O-ring. Instead, GripLock uses a split compression ring to center the steerer tube in the upper bearing, and when you preload the assembly, the split ring provides additional surface area against the steerer for a more secure and safer interface, especially on carbon fiber steerer tubes. The lower assembly is their standard 1.5" sealed bearing lower cup and bearing. The crown race, or in King lingo -- the base plate -- is for a 1.5" tapered steerer tube. The Chris King Tapered NoThreadSet w/ GripLock is highly polished and anodized in four luscious colors -- Black, Navy, Red, and Silver. It fits frames with 1-1/8" to 1.5" (34 to 49mm) tapered head tubes and forks that have a tapered 1-1/8 to 1.5" steerer. It can be used with straight 1-1/8" forks with a reducer base plate (sold separately). It comes with King's standard 10-year warranty.
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