Am just in the process of returning an otherwise lovely bike because of the horrible creaking coming from the front end, almost certainly from the integrated headset.
My other bike appears to also be an integrated headset (no obvious 'semi-integrated' cups on show) and also creaks a little, although it's an MTB so the creaking is less noticeable.
Am planning to get a new road bike but both models I'm interested in appear to also be integrated headsets, are they pretty commonplace?
I think they're still not the norm at all, but not uncommon either.
The one in my Spesh E29 has been fine, though I put new bearings in when I bought the frame used.
The creaking I was convinced was coming from my headset, (I stripped, cleaned and regreased a number of times) turned out to be a loose bottom bracket cup.
Yeah, wasn't sure, I'm guessing if you get a good one they're OK, and if you get a bad one you get creaky problems. I know the bearings in the one I sent back would 'rock' in the race if you pressed down on opposing sides, I think this is the common indicator.
Problem is one of the frames I'm looking at is from Planet X, it looks great and isn't a cheap model, but they don't exactly have a proud history of well machined, in tolerance frames... 🙄
Edit: Cyclistm, thanks, I went through a fairly painful process of elimination to conclude it was the headset, ultimately I could recreate the creaking just standing beside the bike and pushing down on the top tube.
Problem is one of the frames I'm looking at is from Planet X, it looks great and isn't a cheap model, but they don't exactly have a proud history of well machined, in tolerance frames...
they have a great warranty though... OH! 😕
I've never had a problem with it myself but it does cut your options, no anglesets or anything like that.
As for getting a PX one with integrated, nope nope nope.