Originally Posted by cyccommute

In that case, I think you are giving Shimano much more credit then they deserve.



You don’t seem to understand how Phil Wood or other hubs like it are designed and how they are superior to the exalted Shimano hub. Yes, you undo a locknut with a 5mm Allen wrench and the freehub body comes off. That’s actually a nice feature which greatly simplifies spoke replacement. And, yes, there is a bearing set into the hub there. Shimano doesn’t have a bearing at that point so the axle is unsupported in the middle.

But what you are missing is that there is another bearing...actually 2...outboard of that central bearing inside the freehub shell. There is a bearing directly next to that central bearing and another one at the end of the axle. Looking at an exploded view of a Campagnolo hub (I don’t work on Campy stuff), it has a similar arrangement. The Shimano hub only has a bearing at the end of the axle in the same place as the outside bearing in the above example. Campagnolo, Phil Wood, White Industries and many other hubs use this 4 bearing arrangement while Shimano only uses 2 bearings. That means that the bearings on all those other hubs have to bear less weight and thus don’t have to work as hard. It also means that the axle is supported better and would be less likely to bend. I’m not saying that Shimano’s hubs bend axles but having more support along the entire axle makes those other axles even less likely to bend.

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I don’t see why you think the inboard bearing on the Mavic is in adequate. They are 6001 bearings which are used in a lot of hubs. But, like the other hubs, it uses 2 more bearings in the freehub body.