djb

Although I do feel in the cup and cone camp, I do remember going from cup and cone ball bearing bb's to "sealed" units and finding the newer ones pretty much maintenance free. I've had really really long life out of square taper type "sealed" ones and so I can appreciate the comments by the one fellow who mentions his various cartridge hubs with umpteen 1000 miles on them and still running like new. I guess it really comes down to quality, but for me thinking more of the touring side of things, I still like the idea of not worrying about the availability of specific cartridge bearings. I know its pretty unlikely at this point in my life that I will go off on a multi month long bike trip to Ubekistan or something, so I guess my concern is kinda moot....I just think I will always spend more for better quality hubs, with most likely better rubber seals and whatnot of design to keep contaminants out in the first place.

TallRider

sealed-cartridge bearings can last a long time. But so can loose-ball designs that have good seals. I have a 105 rear hub with labyrinth seals and haven't re-packed it in over 6k miles (road bike, I weigh 200#), and it's still perfectly smooth. I'll probably re-pack it sometime soon, just for prevention, but the balls seem to have held up very well.

djb

that was pretty much my experience with the hubs on my mtn bike commuter. It went years and years, yours was 10,000 km, mine went possibly 15000km or more, Im not really sure, but I used it to commute for probably 7, 8 years min. at somewhere around 2000km per year? In all that time it continued to feel smooth and no movement at all when I would take the wheels off and feel by finger, holding the wheel rigidly to feel any slightest movement or roughness. Like I mentioned before, I was entirely impressed by how clean the grease was in it when I did repack it, as well as how good the balls and surfaces looked.

cyccommute 

That article is quite out of date. Even in 1998 it was mostly out of date. Cup and cone hubs of the 80s and early 90s had very little in terms of sealing. They had a dust seal which didn't keep out much of any thing. Early mountain biking was plagued by dirt contaminated bearings and chewed up bearing surfaces. Since then, Shimano has designed very well sealed units that keep out all of the dirt and much of the water.

I assume that you are talking about cartridge bearings. I've seen this before and it is absolutely untrue. From Phil Wood

All but a couple of my bikes have cartridge bearing hubs. All of them have submersible quality seals on the bearings with seals on both sides of the bearing. I've used contact seals that you find on cup and cone bearings in off-road situations and sealed bearings in off-road situations and much prefer the cartridge bearings. Cup and cone...even modern Shimano sealed units...require regular and frequent maintenance in those conditions. Cartridge bearing hubs rarely require any work at all. I've had a single cartridge bearing fail out of dozens of wheels over the years and replacement was easy and straight forward. I have dozens of cup and cone bearings fail over the same period

djb

what cycco says certainly fits in with my relating to sealed bb's vs the old cup and bearing ones.
Cycoo, here's a question, from someone with no idea of cartridge hubs and specific models/costs: do you know what hubs you are using, what models, spoke numbers and a rough idea of the cost of the hubs?
It would be interesting for me to compare the prices to LX-XT level cup and cone hubs that are the level of the ones I have had in the past and present, just to have a rough idea of cost/performance balance.

The off road situations you describe arent really representative of my riding, and are probably the worst scenario for drivetrain wear in general, but I am curious of the cost differences.
Overall, my experience has shown that mid level or a bit higher components work and last very well for me, and strike the right balance between cost and what you get out of them performance/durability wise--but I would like to get an idea of what money you put into your hubs.
I seem to recall you extolling Phil Wood hubs, their ease of maintenance etc, so you must have some of those. In any case, I'd like to see some hub models you have just to do some looking to see what prices are involved.
thanks

cyccommute 

I have used Suntour cartridge hubs (1984), White Industry (1995, 2007, 2012), American Classic (mid90s), Specialized Stout (1998), Cannondale Omega (2003) and Phil Wood (2005, 2007, 2013). I had the Suntours for 6 to 10 years, the Stouts are still going strong (~16 years of mountain biking use) and the 1995 White Industries I used for ~6 years before I sold them on a bike. All of the Phils and the later White Industries are still in service. The 2005 Phils are on my touring bike and have never given me a lick of problems. The 2007 version is on my commuter bike and have the most mileage of any of the hubs, although the Specialized Stout are a very close second. The Omegas are the only ones that have every had a failed bearing but that was an easy fix and the hubs are still being used on my daughter's commuting bike.

All of the hubs are either 36 or 32 spoke hubs and are mostly nondisc, although I have a set of White Industry disc and Phil Wood disc hubs. The prices are all over the place. The Suntour, Stout and Omega were all OEM. The Phils were the most expensive (~$150 front, $400 rear) but are head and shoulders above the others in terms of quality and ease of maintenance...if you have to work on them. The whole cassette and free hub come off the hub with a 5 mm allen wrench. For touring, there's no need for a lockring tool because the drive assembly comes apart and allows you access to the drive side spokes if you have to replace them.

The White Industry hubs are very good but just aren't as easy to service. I actually think they are a little smoother than the Phils but being able to tear down the hub with only a 5mm allen wrench trumps smoothness. White's cost around $300 rear, $100 front.

Any of the cartridge bearing hubs I've used are essentially maintenance free for years and years in really bad conditions. I know how to tear apart, lube, adjust and reassemble cup and cone. I can practically do it in my sleep but I'd rather do other things then tear apart hubs

djb

Thank you for all that, great to have some actual names and price points to consider. Like I said, I'm learning about this from scratch.

Bob Shaver

I adjusted cup and cone bearings starting 40 years ago. My current ride has cartridge bearings, which I replaced with ceramic cartridge bearings. There are 7 grades of annular bearings, and the ones some manufactures use are on the low end of the scale. I take the ceramic bearings out each year or year and a half, pop the seal, clean out the old grease, and put in the new, pop the seals back in and put the bearings back in the hub. Of 4 pairs of such bearings, I've had one ceramic ball get a chip in it. It didn't fail, but was making a rumbling sound. The process is described here. More about ceramic bearings here.

Chris_W

A lot of people on this thread seem to be confused about the nomenclature; for me, it should be loose-ball bearings vs. cartridge bearings, using the word "sealed" for either type is misleading/confusing.

There seems to be quite a few opinions in this thread but not a whole lot of solid info, so I'll try to redress the balance.

The OP is correct that there is a strong trend recently for wheels to more and more often contain cartridge bearings. Almost all wheels that are sold as a complete units with hubs, spokes, and rims that are designed to work together have cartridge bearings. The main exception to this is Shimano - every one of their hubs that are sold separately and as part of complete wheelsets has loose-ball bearings.

Therefore, on mid to upper end bikes you pretty much always get cartridge bearings in the hubs except for the bikes that come with Shimano wheels. On cheaper bikes, there is still a lot of variability, often the hubs are unbranded, or are rebranded by the bike manufacturer, and they could have cartridge or loose-ball bearings. The lowest-end bikes (e.g., kids bikes) seem to always have loose-ball bearings.

I have read that a good quality, well-adjusted loose-ball hub will run slightly smoother, with less resistance, than any cartridge-bearing hub. I assume that this is partly because the preload can be precisely adjusted and partly because the bearings are smaller in hubs that use cartridge bearings, all else being equal (e.g., hub shell size and weight). However, that is only the case when the hubs are maintained properly. Unfortunately, many people don't know how to maintain their hubs, or even that it should be done. Therefore, a lot of loose-ball hubs are ridden improperly adjusted and/or contaminated with dirt. Cartridge bearings don't need much attention except when they need replacing, so are more often being ridden in a better state, and so in fact when taking the average of all wheels that are being ridden in their current condition, the cartridge bearing hubs are probably running smoother than the loose-ball hubs, even though the opposite would be true if they were to be all put in their ideal state.

If cared for properly, loose-ball bearings will outlast cartridge bearings by a significant margin, mainly because the surfaces of the cups and cones are more durable than in the cartridge bearings. Unfortunately, if they are not cared for properly and they are ridden for long enough to damage the cups, then the whole hub is finished and needs replacing. With cartridge bearings, no matter how bad the bearings get, if you put some new ones in then they should be as good as new since you are replacing the surfaces as well as the bearings themselves. So, for someone who doesn't want to touch their hubs, and wants to have a mechanic replace the bearings for them every few years, cartridge-bearing hubs are probably a better choice.

Servicing and replacing loose-ball bearings is pretty easy once you've learned the basics and you have a few cone wrenches. For cartridge bearings, servicing and replacing bearings can be a real problem and requires specialist tools to do it right, although you can often improvise with a blunt instrument and a hammer, but this should be avoided when possible. This is the main reason why every wheel I own has a Shimano hub, with loose-ball bearings; it is an added bonus for me to know that I'm also getting slightly reduced rolling resistance because of this, but I wouldn't recommend such hubs for the majority of people.

HillRider

Sounds just about like the process, frequency and time involved I use to maintain cup-and cone bearings and I've never had a chrome steel ball fail.

djb

that is certainly the case with people I know.

and thanks for your take on this, lots of interesting comments, especially about loose bearing hubs needing to be adjusted and serviced properly vs someone who doesnt want to do mechanical stuff and get cartridge bearings replaced by a store mechanic-a good take on it pointing out that one isnt necessarily better.

As you say, I still like the idea of doing this stuff myself, and realistically the time spent on it for my bikes really isnt that much per year, so the time spent isnt a factor. I would have to say that spending easily 2-$300 more for top cartridge hubs vs very good loose ball hubs for me would come down to that I would rather spend the saved money on some new panniers, or other camping stuff for a bike trip. I still havent really priced various hubs like Cycoo mentioned, but thats my feeling, to stick with ball and cup and put the money into other bike stuff or whatever (especially as I am somewhat competent at repacking and adjusting, have all the tools, am fairly quick at doing it and like doing it).

lee kenney

I have a pair of Suntour Superbe Pro's, that are capable of accepting cartridge bearings , The cones have a race you can remove , cups are removable .Best of both worlds .

cyccommute 

While you are right that we should be clearer when referring to bearings, I assure you that the term "sealed" is neither misleading nor confusing. Loose bearing hubs and cartridge bearing hubs are indeed "sealed" against water and, more importantly, dirt intrusion. Hubs, even good hubs, up to the late 80s or early 90s had rudimentary "seals" at best. The seal was a press fit ring that deflected some dust and some water but not much. These hubs required regular rebuilds...usually 3 to 6 months...to remove contaminants and you still pitted cones. Back in the bad old days, you replaced the bearings during a rebuild not because the bearings had been ovalized due to load but because they had been ovalized due to wear. I occasionally see bearings that have been flattened due to wear in these old hubs at the co-op.

Mountain biking...as it has done for most bicycle technology...drove the development of better seals because the rebuild interval could be as bad as 300 to 400 miles in off-road use. Shimano developed much better contact seals for their hubs and introduced the conical rubber seals that are common on all Shimano hubs today in 1995. There previous seals just weren't up to the job but the new seals solved the problem and lengthened the maintenance interval. You can go for years now without servicing a hub without deleterious results.

Cartridge bearing hubs are also "sealed". As I pointed out above, Phil Wood uses bearings that can be used in submersible pumps. The Suntour cartridge hubs that I used in the mid80s didn't use submersible quality bearings, they had a labyrinth seal on the inside of the hub and a tight contact seal on the outside but they were much better sealed than other hubs of the day. Because the cartridge was tightly press fit into the hub, the outer seal was all that was needed to seal out water and dirt.


I would say that you are overstating the usage of cartridge bearings. Almost all expensive, high quality wheels use cartridge bearings. There are lots and lots of wheels out there at lower price points using loose bearing hubs.

What you have read is wrong. In practice, all of the cartridge bearing hubs that I have used are run smoother than just about any loose bearing hub I've compared them to. There are some very good reasons for this. When you attach a wheel to a bicycle, whether you use a nut or a quick release, you are compressing the bearings. You are actually compressing the whatever method is being used for holding the bearings in place. With a cartridge bearing hub such as the Phil Wood (most of there hubs use similar mechanisms), you are compressing the end caps which put a little tension on the inner part of the cartridge bearing race. You don't actually compress any part of the rolling bearings.

Compare that to a cup and cone bearing. You are compressing the cone (as well as the lock nut). The cone is a wedge that is driven into the space between the bearings and the axle making the tighter. You have to adjust the bearings so that there is a tiny amount of play in the bearings before you mount the wheel so that the bearings are too tight after the wheel is attached. How much play is left in the bearings is a matter of guess work and will actually vary depending on how tight you tighten the quick release or nuts. With the advent of lawyer lips, you are constantly changing the compressive forces with quick releases due to the method of removal. Your bearings are never going to be "perfectly" adjusted.

From a size perspective, a Phil Wood PWX92 bearing used in an FSC hub has a thickness of 7mm (0.275") which is a typical width for hub bearings. When you take into consideration the wall thickness of the bearing housing, that still leaves enough room for a 1/4" bearing which is the same size as the loose ball bearings that Shimano uses for the rear hub. And it is larger than the bearings that Shimano typically uses for the front hub.

Again, not in my experience. Cup damage is very rare even in abused hubs. I've seen hubs where the bearings were ground to hemispheres and the cones were more triangular than round but the cups were still fine. The larger surface area of the cup compared to the cone mitigates the damage. But even when maintained properly, loose ball bearings aren't going to outlast cartridge bearings by any significant margin. Automobiles use sealed cartridge bearings for steering applications and they have for decades. We used to have to grease the front ends of cars as often as we changed the oil (3000 miles or 3 months) back in the days of loose bearings. Now you can go for hundreds of thousands of miles without any kind of maintenance on the steering system. An those bearings are "bearing" much heavier loads than any bicycle can every place on a cartridge bearing.

We also use cartridge bearings in lots of headsets and almost all bottom brackets. I seldom hear anyone extolling the virtues of loose bearing bottom brackets. Most everyone realizes that those are a royal pain in the regions south of your coccyx and opt for maintenance free cartridge bearing bottom brackets.

My experience with 10 different brands of hubs (almost 20 different hubs) and 10s of thousands of miles in very harsh conditions have resulted in exactly 1 bearing failure. I replaced the bearings in the Suntour hubs once but that was because I was young and ignorant and thought I had to "maintain" the bearings and I flushed out the grease.

Again, not in my experience. The tool for removing the cartridge bearing in most hubs is a spring clip that you use an axle or drift to drive out. The tool cost $4 here. Pressing the bearing back in is trivial as well. A piece of all thread and a large thick fender washer will do the job.

If you spend the money for a Phil Wood hub, the whole operation can be done, literally, out in the middle of a field with a rock and a couple of allen wrenches. For the rear hub, you don't even need the rock.

As for the rolling resistance, the difference is probably trivial if the loose bearing hub is adjusted properly which isn't often the case, even for those of us who know how to do it. I'd give the edge to cartridge based on my experience with them. I've had them spin on the work stand for up to 10 minutes. Long enough that I was almost considering them to be perpetual motion machines.

Bob Shaver

I have no problem with lose ball bearings, aka cup and cone. They are probably just fine for adjustability and durability. However, if one has cartridge bearings you definitely get some speed increase by going to ceramic. I have had cartridge bearings fail. A bearing will lock up, and almost instantly the ball spacer is crunched and all the balls are crunched together and the bearing won't turn. So you either service them, or periodically replace them. I choose to service them, and the only specialized tools I use are a rubber mallet, and a dental pick to get the seal off.

HillRider

Apparently the placebo effect is still alive and well. The "value" of ceramic bearings has been debated to death on this and other forums in the past and the inescapable conclusion is that the amount of energy savings from the use of ceramic bearing in bicycle applications is so small as to be nearly unmeasurable. If you reduce the frictional loss of a wheel bearing by 25% using ceramic bearings you save a tiny fraction of a watt.

Bob Shaver

placebos are fine, but I measure roll out distance on a road, on a non-windy day, consistent tire pressure, for any changes I make on my trike. I do a roll out test, and mark the road with spray paint where I roll to a stop.


fenders: make a difference (slow you down)

flagpole: slows you down

mirror: slows you down

studded rear tire: slows you down

ceramic bearings: measurable improvement in roll out distance, about 10% further coasting rollout. plus I can feel it in faster speeds on a course I ride every day.


however, everybody's got an opinion, especially those who have not tried them. You can take away my ceramic bearings when you pry them out of my cold, dead hands. Oh wait, that is for another topic.

HillRider

I don't have to try (and pay) for them to believe the results of truly objective laboratory accuracy tests that show ceramic bearing have a negligiable effect on a bicycles rolling resistance. Your "roll out" measurements are subject to too many uncontrolled and self-serving variables to prove anything to anyone but you.

Dave Mayer

I have dozens of hubs either in boxes or in wheelsets. Bottom line is that the mid-range Shimano hubs are unbeatable in terms of design, quality of materials and execution.

They feature loose balls, but they are 'sealed' - very well indeed. Usually better than the overpriced overhyped cartridge bearing product from the small-fry manufacturers.

I am looking at a stack of boxes of hubs that includes Novatec, Hope, King, Campagnolo (many models), Mavic etc. If I were to build a set of wheels for myself right now, and did not worry too much about a few grams of weight, I would reach everytime for Shimano LX or 105.

BTW: the shop you went to are idiots. Or more likely liars.

And if you are considering cartridge-bearing hubs, apart from the sub-optimal design relative to Shimano, consider the misery you'll have to go to find and replace some obscure cartridge bearings down the road. Or a rare and expensive freehub.

Shimano hubs and replacement parts are everywhere. I don't even pay for these, as they can be scavenged from wrecked wheels at the back of your local shop.

Finally, with respect to the argument that certain bearings have lower friction or 'resistance' than others... Hub energy losses are negligible. Don't get fooled into paying for something idiotic like ceramic bearings.

nymtber

Cup and cone here. I can service them with the cone wrenches I already have and the Park bike grease I also have.
I like the simplicity and ease of replacement. If you like cartridge, then by all means, use what you like! I can't justify the expense for GOOD cartridge bearing hubs, but good cup and cone hubs (shimano) work very well. Just re-pack and properly adjust when new, and your set for years of use.

cyccommute 

I fail to see why a pressed in cartridge bearing is a "sub-optimal" designed compared to cup and cone for the reasons detailed above. There are very few ways of binding a cartridge bearing since the force of the end caps is on the inner ring of the bearing rather than on the bearing surface itself.

The bearings used in cartridge bearing hubs are hardly obscure. All of the ones that I've used are readily available from automotive supply stores or from bearing distrubutors. They are standard sizes. Finding the right bearing is simply a case of measuring the bearing and getting the proper size. Most of the cartridge bearings I've seen are even marked with a part number on the seal which is easy to cross reference.

Even Shimano hubs are hardly standard. Shimano changed the diameter of their cones when they went from 130mm OLD to 135mm OLD on mountain bike hubs. The cones are almost the same size and the newer cones will thread onto the axle of the 130mm axle but it is too large. I found this out the hard way when I went to replace a pitted cone. The old cones are very difficult to find.

Cones are also not standard between brands. Finding a cone for an obscure brand could be extremely difficult.

bkaapcke

Replacing all the bearing parts is the best part of cartridge bearings. All new races, balls and seals. Yeah, I could replace them myself, at $5.00 per wheel, but then I'd have to fool around with truing them. Not interested. In fact, I'm wondering if anyone local (SF east bay) is interested in a seldom used truing stand. bk

HillRider

This I don't understand. How does changing a hub bearing change the true of the rim?

niuoka

rim leaning against wall at 45 degrees....pop cartridge out with a 10 pound sledge

AnkleWork

Just, WOW!

djb

saw this today, shows a basic overview of bearing differences.

https://velonews.competitor.com/2013/...earings_310180