Greetings everyone! I know 4 types of hubs:

1. Hubs that use balls that spin within a round cavity,
2. Hubs that use crown ball,
3. Hubs that use cup and cone,
4. Hubs that use sealed cartridge bearings with 2 sealed cartridge bearings on the front hub and 2, 4 or 6 sealed cartridge bearings on the rear hub.

From all of the above, I think that the sealed cartridge bearings hubs are the most efficient and the most durable ones. So by using hubs with sealed cartridge bearings will you be able to travel the longest distance after you stop pedaling using only the momentum force ?

Which ones do you think are the most efficient and the most durable hubs ?

I think neither the efficiency or the durability of hubs is going to be defined by their bearing type. In mechanical theory, maybe. But not for practical use.

I have a pair of wheels that were on my 1973 Raleigh Professional. They are cup and cone and as smooth and friction free as any hub I have ever worked on. Given that they are over 50 years old, I would say that I doubt that any cartridge sealed bearing hub could have lasted as long, at least without replacing the sealed cartridges. BTW these hubs still have the original bearing balls

50 years lifespan for hubs with the original bearing balls is impressive but isn't the distance that the hubs traveled more important than the age ?

Generally speaking, virtually all bearings used in bike wheels are some variation on balls contained within races. Cup and cone hubs have adjustable races. The races in sealed bearings are not adjustable. The RPM for bikes wheels is so low that almost any kind of bearing will do the job for a long time if properly maintained. One could conceivably make the argument that large balls (cup and cone) are more efficient and have less rolling resistance than small balls (sealed bearing) but I’m no engineer.

The answer to your question is: it depends. Neither design is inherently superior to the other with regard to rolling resistance. How clean and well adjusted is the cup and cone hub? How tight are the seals on the sealed bearing hub? For all practiical purposes, either kind of bearing design could roll further than the other given enough maladjustment, dirt, or seal tension.

In this video we have the Novatec D042SB hub. I think it has 4 sealed cartridge bearings. With the Novatec hub, the wheel span for 2 minutes and 5 seconds from 0:21-2:26 using only the momentum force. The wheel with the other hub(he doesn't say what bearing type it is) spun for only 35 seconds from 2:45-3:20.

The speeds that were applied to the wheel during the 2 tests, each one with a different hub, are not measured. For a more relevant test, I think the speeds should have been measured.

I think the tests would have been more relevant with the hubs performing under weight, with a rider on the bike, on flat paved road, with no incline and with minimum wind speed, but it is still a huge difference in the times the wheel spun with different hubs.

What the efficiency and the durability of the hub depends on? Or it depends on each model of the hub and there isn't a general rule ?

What about the price of the hubs? Could it be an indicator of which bearing type is better? Is some type of bearing generally more expensive than the others or it depends on the each model of the hub?

the biggest factor is what grease is used... then seal drag comes into play... Sealed "Cartridge" Bearings have Twice as many seals involved.... and more balls pushing through the grease...
seeing the "spin test" posted above makes me laugh... the weight of the rim, tire and spokes is not mentioned at all, and there was no standard for RPM at the start of the "test"... etc.
also... the hubs' axles are QR type... guess what changes a bearing's SIDE loading when set differently... a QR.
note #2... the "normal" hub is a Box Store Tourney hub, on a Mongoose...

i've always had best results from cup/cone hubs, as far as least resistance.... and the Shimano Hub grease works fantastic... my original Dura Ace hubs are still working perfectly, since 1983... they were re-greased every year when my Trek was my only bike, and only transportation.

as a kid, i used light weight red silicone grease that was made for my Aurora HO scale cars... it worked very well, and i could find it easily then. that grease was in the hubs of my Mitzutani SuperLite factory race bike when i hit 53mph on flat ground... and also when i hit 72mph on that same bike riding west from Government Camp, Oregon on Hwy 26.

Why do you think cartridge bearings, which are round ball in races with two heavy rubber seals per bearing, are going to spin better than a hub that uses labyrinth seals?

Both efficiency and durability of the hubs can depend on quite a few things. Among them being the materials used, which includes their hardness and specific alloy. Steel is by definition an alloy. Unlike aluminum which is a basic element. So why do we call aluminum alloy? Well probably because for most usage aluminum is alloyed with other things to make it more durable. As is iron to create steel.

We could go deeper into that. But suffice to say that the exact type steel or aluminum used in the hub and bearings construction will make a difference. As will how well the overall design is optimized for efficiency and durability. And for how well the components are machined or made. And for how well quality control is maintained.

The type of bearings being the best for efficiency won't matter if the manufacturing of them was crappy.

Why didn't they bother to remove the brake caliper? That is a BIG ERROR for credibility.
The 2nd hub has an obvious rub sound 1/rev.
Also an obvious out of round/balance which dissipates energy, bouncing up & down.

I rode that bike regularly for over 20 years. And the hubs were serviced at least once every year. The bike was seldom ridden in bad conditions
I would say that those hubs endured at the very least 50,000 km of use and are still as good as new

Sorry for the confusion, I thought it's the same wheel with different hubs. It looks like there are 2 different bikes there, not only wheels.

I will try the Shimano grease to see its results.

The test has its flaws, and maybe I was wrong to think in this way but I think it's better to ask and understand the issue better than to believe a wrong idea. Maybe it was a mistake from me to mostly look at the big difference in the times that the wheels spun, but isn't the difference too big not to be taken into consideration ?

Could you please explain what you mean when you say with the hubs' axles being QR and with the bearing's SIDE loading when set differently ?

The hubs that use labyrinth seals are new to me. I didn't know about them.

I thought that the sealed cartridge bearings were the most efficient and durable ones after seeing videos similar to this one and after talking to a few guys that were working in bike shops and they all told me that sealed cartridge bearings are the most efficient and durable ones, although 1 or 2 guys told me that cup and cone hubs work fine.

Both of those points can be true at the same time.

Clearly cup-and-cone "work fine" as we've been using them for eons. That doesn't necessarily mean that some cartridges are not an upgrade over that design.

Can you see how this might be a poor basis for having strong opinions about engineering?

Assuming decent quality (i.e not the cheapest possible) and properly adjusted and lubed, a normal cyclist will not notice the difference between between any of these in terms of efficiency and durability

in general unless designed for maintenance, sealed BB are use and replace (i.e use 20,000 miles)

The Quick Releases cause the bearing adjustments to TIGHTEN... the QR rod stretches some, and The AXLE COMPRESSES a tiny bit too.
Yes, it's true, it's been tested, and it's been discussed on many forums.
i doubted this until i took a bare Quick Release hub, adjusted it to "perfect, no drag, no slop" then tightened it into a frame... instant bearing drag/roughness!

Proper QR hub bearing adjustment is to have a very tiny amount of Slop when free, then no slop, no drag when fitted into a frame, and the QR is set correctly.
i use about 1/3 of the QR lever swing as a standard tightening... 2/3 no resistance, then the last "1/3 to closed" tightens it.
i use a bit more swing with the Open Cam QRs... about 1/2 the lever swing... by nature, they are mushier than enclosed cam QRs..

The friction introduced by hub bearings is insignificant compared with other frictions. Up to a certain speed, the biggest impediment is probably the tires. Then above that speed, it's air resistance.

You can adjust a hub's bearings so that they are far too tight, and you'll feel the resistance. And yet if you put it on the bike and ride, you probably won't feel the problem. I'm not saying it's OK to do this. I'm saying that hub friction is not a big concern compared with others.

I don't think efficiency varies much, durability depends on how you treat it. CCB bearings need careful adjusting, cartridge bearings you just replace when they get loose or rough which makes them simpler to use, but Shimano has stuck with cones for a reason. A simple spin-down test measures nothing useful, to add load you need to add tyres and they probably lose enough power to make bearing loss seem insignificant. I've seen it suggested that hubs cost less than a Watt, and you'll gain as much by switching to ball bearing derailleur pulleys as you would replacing your hubs with something expensive. With cartridge bearings you might reduce power loss or wear by using something like an SKF bearing to replace generic bearings, but only if the hubs are precisely machined to the required tolerances - putting a good bearing in an undersize, non-concentric or out-of-round bore will lead to accelerated wear. After you've done your best to make the bearings silky smooth, air resistance at 10 mph is the largest loss anyway.

Something that NEEDS to be considered about "cartridge bearings" in bike hubs..not all loads are vertical loads... Side loading a bearing designed only for Vertical loads causes rapid wear and Can Cause Bearing Failures if the side loading exceeds design specs... the bearings are forced together by Side Loading... once that force is exceeded, the bearings try to come apart.....
i have disassembled hundreds of "cartridge bearings" as a mechanic... you hit them hard enough to overcome the assembly force... the center races pop out, balls go skittering all over the place, and you then cut the outer race in two or three places to remove it from a machine.... rusty farm implements from dairyland, Tillamook, Oregon come to mind... cow poop, fertilizers, serious rain levels, and salty ocean air.

Cup/cone hubs can be rebuilt annually or longer,for the cost of 18 or 20 fresh balls, and a teaspoon of grease...... cartridge bearing hubs need all new bearing assemblies, and typically get used until roughness/failure is found..

i'll keep using cup/cone, thank you.
my Dura Ace cup/cone hubs are now 43 years old, and smooth.
i regularly find Shimano Exage hubs that are as old, and were never re-greased... still smooth. My Diamondback linear trail bike wore a pair of Exage hubs for 15 years... they were used and untouched for at least two decades before i got them.

i regularly replace HT2 bottom brackets with bad cartridge bearings... cart. steering headset bearings too.
GXP BBs wear out even faster.

just my personal, professional experience.

Early on, Bullseye sold bottom brackets that combined a set of thrust bearings and a set of annular bearings on each side. Not sealed, of course, but easily accessible for service. I didn't understand the point of the design at the time, so I never ordered any for the shop. I guess I wasn't the only one who didn't understand the merits of the design, because that bottom bracket didn't stay in the catalog for long, I think.

But I did keep Bullseye sealed bearing hubs in stock because the bearings could be easily removed and replaced using a 4-mm Allen wrench. The hubs Phil Wood was selling at that time were supposed to be mailed back to the factory for service.