Wheel bearing service needed?

[Birdthom]

My wheels have cup & cone bearings (Shimano RS80 C24). They are new this year, only done about 1500 miles, but I've been riding them in lots of really filthy weather.

Racing over the last couple of weeks I've almost felt a bit like my brakes were dragging slightly or there has been some friction somewhere. I know the brakes aren't dragging, so I just put it down to a slight loss of form and told myself to MTFU. However, when racing this evening my front wheel started making quite a loud whining sound after a couple of laps. It was noisy enough that guys in the bunch were staring at it as if something was pretty wrong. I kept going and after about 20 minutes more racing the noise faded away.

Does this sound like the bearings might need cleaning out/greasing? I'm racing again on Saturday morning so I'm going to try to get the bike into my LBS tomorrow morning.

TIA

[Simond S]

I would assume either dry bearing (jet washed out?) or a bit of grit has got in there.

£15 service at lbs should get them spinning like new again. At that mileage I cant imagine the cones or bearing have worn.

http://www.shimano.com/media/techdocs/content/cycl...

[Birdthom]

Cheers. I popped into my LBS this morning. They said the same as you and stripped/regreased it while I waited (even though they were v busy at the time). No charge, top service all round, certainly discourages me from using cheaper web-based shops. They almost talked me into a new Storck frameset while I was there mind you, which would have made it the most expensive bearing service in history :-)

Conclusion - support your local bike shop.