Originally Posted by
Fat Tire Trader
The Hi-E hub may have been the inspiration for the WTB greaseguard hubs. Charlie may have experimented by adding grease ports to Hi-E hubs, but I don't remember ever seeing one. I worked as an apprentice for Charlie in 1983 after that, I opened the closest bicycle store to his house/shop. I have spent a lot of time over the years in his shop with him showing me his latest projects. In my opinion, the author of the article is not correct. Greaseguard happened with the WTB hubs that I think were machined by Paragon.
I said "
the early GG hubs were in fact Hi-E hubs that Charlie deconstructed and modified" and I should correct that to "at least one or two prototype GG hubs were reconstructed Hi-E, I think" Maybe just a pair for him and one for Jacquie before the one-piece shell WTB hubs became available? Pretty sure the ones I saw (or dreamt I saw?) were on Jacquie's bike. Isn't there at least one old-ish Cunningham in the Hall of Fame? Oughtta be in the Smithsonian too! Not that there are very many of them out there, shame to take one out of circulation to put it in a museum.
If my memory is a hallucination and no Hi-E hubs were ever modified with grease-guard ports, then I humbly apologize.