Originally Posted by
Andrew R Stewart
I wish I could say I've had the same experience to the same degree. ....So, again, i wish i could say that my experience with cartridge bearings was what i would call "god's gift". But my weekly work says otherwise. Andy.
Agreed. Cartridge bearings, and the hubs designed around them, can vary widely from really good to pretty lousy. Latley, I've been more likely to go with loose ball hubs, mostly b/c I know I can handle those perfectly, without any specialized tools beyond a cone wrench. That being said, I do have some cartridge bearing hubs, and this current crop has been really good to me, so far. And, they definitely require less routine maintenance. (OTOH, occasionally repacking Shimano and coaster brake hubs isn't a big deal, either....)
I think we'll all do better when the component manufacturers move past the notion that "sealed bearings"= better sales.... low-buch cartridge hubs don't get much love from me. More importantly, I think we need to move towards a few "standard" size cartridges; it's not that bad now, but Andy brings up a good point about the difficulty a shop faces in trying to keep a bunch of different size bearing cartridges and associated tools in stock.