ABEC is a tricky topic. The problem is that the skaters love having the ABEC number to use as a guide so it's hard to fight wars of desire! Fact is, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors that have sprung up in the inline world around the ABEC rating and what it means to performance. We hate to even address it and would prefer to not even mention ABEC because it's so far out of control and really is not meaningful.

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. There is no evidence to suggest that bearings with a higher ABEC rating will let you skate any faster than ABEC-1 bearings.

For the inline world, the tolerances of the ID and OD are not critical given the non-precision aspects of the shafts and housings. 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 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 are areas where ZeroDrag bearings are unsurpassed. Don't get hung up on the ABEC stuff... learn about the manufacturer, learn about what really makes a good inline bearing, and you'll be hooked on ZeroDrag!

ZeroDrag is a brand name of PEER Bearing Company. PEER is the manufacturer and controls every aspect of the process of ZeroDrag bearings from concept to finished parts. A vast majority of the other brand bearings entering the inline market are imported by "brokers" who find one of the thousands of bearing plants in Asia to make them. Try digging into where other bearings are made and by whom and all you get is a "song & dance". Don't get us wrong, there are a few good "manufacturers" out there promoting inline bearings, but there's a lot of misinformation also. We're open and we'll tell you the real scoop.

Skaters take their sport seriously; as a manufacturer, so do we.