How do you know when it is time to repack or replace Hubs? as well the BB

First of all, can the bearings in your hubs and bottom bracket even be serviced? Many modern designs use sealed cartridge bearings. When they start to feel rough, remove and replace. They're not designed to be serviced. Shimano is one of the few companies who still use loose ball bearings in their hubs, so those can be serviced.

For my bikes that use loose balls in the bottom bracket or hubs, I periodically check to make sure they're still turning smooth as silk. If not, it's time for servicing. Or if it's been a few years, I'll tear 'em down and regrease them anyway. If you ride in dusty, wet, or salty conditions, you may need to service more often since contaminants can find their way past your bottom bracket or hub seals. And the better those seals are, the longer you can probably go between overhauls.

The answer is kind of the same as how often should one bathe. Within reason the more often the better. Andy.

Don't wait till the hubs feel gritty or have a lot of play - you want to keep the original parts so things run as smooth as possible. Hubs overhauled regularly can last for a very, very long time. The BB on almost all newer bikes is replaced rather than overhauled - do it when it feels too rough or has too much play.

... i'm being shunned... better lube my hubs...

I do mine every 2500 miles.

Exactly. Every February wether it needs it or not.

There's no single answer, except "when they need it".

Hubs and the conditions they are used in both vary, so some hubs can go 5-10,000 before needing service, while others might need it after 1-2,000 or winter riding. I typically service my cup/cone hubs annually after winter, which on my old rad bike averaged about 5,000-8,000 miles with the worst at the end.

If you think your hubs might need service, go ahead and do so, but make note of how many dry or wet miles they have, and the condition of the grease. If it's clean, you can go longer next time. If it's badly contaminated or, worse, washed out, shorten the interval. After a while you'll develop an instinct for this and use your own judgement.

Here's an unscientific way to check the condition of wheel hubs without taking anything apart. With the wheel off the ground, give it a good spin. Mine keep spinning longer than two minutes. If it can do that silently and has no side-to-side play, the bearings are fine.

Headsets can be checked by raising the front wheel and seeing if the wheel falls to each side by its own weight, with no notchiness or tendency to remain straight ahead. With the wheel on the ground, engage the front brake and rock the bike forward. If the bearings are loose, you will sense movement.

A BB can be checked for looseness by wiggling the cranks side to side. Remove the chain from the ring(s) and spin the pedals to check for notchiness and rumbilng. This is not as good as removing the cranks and spinning the BB spindle with the fingertips, but it will reveal an obvious problem.

By doing these checks, you won't need to service bearings nearly as often as you should bathe.

When you do repack it can be worth it to use high quality grease. I had a bike that had the grease washed out of one side of the rear wheel from hauling it around with that side forward in sometimes rainy conditions.

I didn't know there was a problem until I was traveling for work and it started sounding horrible on a ride. I repacked it with generic auto wheel grease on the side of the road (I carry a flat 15mm and a small adjustable wrench amoung other things). It smoothed out some, but still felt noticeably notchy.

After I got home I cleaned it all out again and repacked it with the Park brand polylube. It felt way, way smoother and hardly notchy at all. I always thought any old grease would be fine, but I'm now convinced that the type of grease can make a big difference.

I've been cleaning and repacking the hubs on several wheelsets over the summer. The last set I did rotated fine, however, the grease in the rear hub had become contaminated somehow. There was no way I would have known that without opening up the hub and visually inspecting it. So if you're going to go to the trouble of visually inspecting hubs/bearings, you may as well clean and repack them too.

Annually, if there's a sufficiently miserable February Saturday afternoon when it's near freezing, raining, there's not a brevet that weekend, and all the other chores are done. Otherwise every other year might work.

I agree that all greases aren't the same, and they have different applications. However, you say you repacked part of a bearing without cleaning it. The roughness could have been due to the presence of dirt rather than the quality of the grease.

Automotive wheel bearing grease lasts for 100k miles or more, even in unsealed bearings. Therefore, it seems good enough for my bike, which gets serviced far more often. When I had unsealed bearings in my car, I didn't give them a thought until they started grinding. Then I bought new ones, repacked them, and installed them. Those bearings had balls held within inner and outer races, while the inner races in my bike's hubs are integral with the wheel - don't want to destroy them! I use the same red stuff on my bike as I used on my car.