Originally Posted by
3alarmer
...the practical result of what you describe usually shows up in less precise feel to your steering and handling. ON a more macroscopic scale, if you leave the front wheel bearings a little bit loose on a gar (a different sort of bearing, they use roller bearings for cars, but still useful as illustration), you get very poor steering because the wheels tend to flop around incrementally instead of staying in alignment.
Before anyone jumps in here and says bikes are not cars, I suggest you try it out for yourself on your own bicycle.
Your theory might be correct in the extreme but the real life of a riding bike suggests that "minor" hub bearing slop is often not even noticed. There are likely many thousands of bikes right now with slightly sloppy hubs and these bikes get to where they are steered well enough to not read of bikes "going out of control".
I have a few sets of Phil hubs with the common radial contact cartridge bearing slop. Even on the tandem the only time I notice it is when servicing the bike.
So the real question might be "how much slop can happen before I notice it when riding?" Andy