If you had a FR bike with a 1.5 headtube and you were planning on using a 1 1/8 steerer fork, would you use reducer cups (from E.13) or a reducer headset (from FSA)?
If you want a low stack height and half degree steeper headangle, go with the E.13 cups. That not being everyone's cup-o-tea, if you don't want your headangle any steeper, you'll want to go with a reducing headset.
I'd go with the cups for several reasons: A) to support a good company, B) multiple brands of bearings will work in case you ever fry one (any bearing that conforms to the ZS standard), and C) I like a low/steep front end.
It also puts less stress on the headtube, but I'm not really worried about ovalizing a burly 1.5 headtube.
In my case, I want to put a different fork on my Chase, but I really don't care about the stack height. I'm opting for a Cane creek reducing headset so I put my px knifen fork on it.
I have 2 1.5" headtube frames, and run a different version of the 1.5" Cane Creek in both. One is the XX, other is XXC. One I run with a 1.5" steerer Breakout+, and the other is a 1 1/8" Shiver. Both have the same cups so I can swap forks around very easily, they both just slide in and fit in the cups.
I much prefer that over the headtube reducers, which is just another contact point that doesn't need to be there. I don't really see the benefit of running a smaller diameter headset when you can run the larger diameter bearings and still run the 1 1/8" steerer.
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