The headset is often overlooked and neglected, but it is an essential component to your bike. Your bike’s headset is the bearing assembly that keeps your fork attached to your bicycle, and it’s what allows you to turn your fork and handlebars to steer your bicycle.
All bicycle headsets work in a similar way – there are two bearings, one for the top and one for the bottom of the headtube, and your fork’s steerer tube passes through the headtube with lower and upper bearings.
The steerer tube protrudes out past the upper head tube and is clamped down and held in place by the handlebar stem. Before you clamp the handlebar stem to the steerer tube, the system must be preloaded / compressed together in order for the headset to work and withstand loads and abuse.
