BrokenGlass

i will be getting a new wheel soon and was wondering which most of you think is better, cup and cone or cartridge bearings. ive rebuilt hubs with the cup/cone so i dont mind maintainign that. which will hold up better to wet/muddy riding better? also, this is for the hubs. i realize there are diff applicatoins where cartridge is used, but i'm not so concerned with them.

thanks

HillRider

For hubs, I prefer cup-and cone. For bottom brackets and headsets, cartridge or sealed cartridge bearings are the only way to go, IMHO.

d_D

The seals are more important when riding in wet/mud.

nitropowered

+1

Overhauling BB's and headsets are a pain but hubs aren't so bad. Plus you get adjustability with cup/cone hubs.

moxfyre

Agreed!

To expand on that, cartridge BBs are great because they last forever with no maintenance, and when they finally die they are easy to replace with no mess. Similar for cartridge headsets.

With hubs, it's hard to make cartridge bearings fit in a rear hub without compromising either the strength of the axle or the strength of the bearings. Which means they often wear out prematurely. And since the hub is part of the wheel, and rather expensive, you can't just chuck it and replace it... you have to press out the bearings and press in new ones. Which is often not an easy task for the hobbyist.

mcoine

I have ten years off road on a set of hugis. No problems, still spin smooth as butter. Cartridge bearings in hubs are better in wet and muddy conditions for the same reason they are better in bb's and headsets. I'm using ultegra cup and cones in my road bike, but when money allows I will swap them out for cartridge bearing hubs.

Sheldon Brown

I agree as far as multispeed hubs are concerned.

For single-speed/fixed-gear/front hubs, cartridges are also nice.

Sheldon "Carts" Brown

moxfyre

The fixed-gear hubs I've had were cartridge and they were excellent, even though they were cheap (IRO and Nashbar/Dimension).

I believe that it's easier for a company to get started manufacturing cartridge bearing hubs than cup-and-cone hubs: with cup-and-cone hubs they have to acquire the tooling to make the bearing surfaces, which is very expensive. With cartridge-bearing hubs, they "merely" have to make a hole for the bearings to press-fit into... the tricky work of actually making the bearings is done by somebody else.

HillRider

I believe Sheldon's comment about the desirability of cup-and-cone bearings for multi-speed hubs is that, for Shimano at least, the outboard bearing location on the drive side gives much better axle support. The use of cartridge bearings in this location compromises either axle support or bearing size.

Sheldon Brown

Most modern cup-and-cone hubs _have_ seals. Shimano is the best, nothing else comes close for the money.

Sheldon "XT" Brown

BrokenGlass

thanks for all the reply's. its nice to see what others like.

truckin

Hehe, I didn't read the question before voting, so I went with cartridge. Now that I know what the questions was, yes, I'd go cup and cone for hubs and cartridge for everything else.