Phydiox

I have aquired a set of Axsium's with sealed bearings and love them. But I am wondering....everythang else I use from firearms to skates to fishing reels, It is custumary to clean all the factory grease out and use a lighter oil. It works wonders with everythang else,is it advisable with Bike hubs as well?

LesterOfPuppets

I run grease in all my hubs. Lightweight oil is good for freehub body use. Dunno if I'd go to the trouble of tearing one down to clean out the factory gunk, though. I just dribble a bit in once a year or so.

dabac

A lighter oil in place of a thicker grease will gain you a fraction of lesser spinning resistance, at a whopping huge cost of the oil not staying in place as well, and possibly make the bearing more susceptible to contamination too. I.e. more maintenance/shorter life.
On a bicycle, where bearing drag is at best a marginal contributor to overall resistance, there's just not many people willing to do that trade-off.

But doable? Sure. I've even seen a track bike running with the seals/shields removed. Only being used indoors there wasn't much contamination to deal with, and maybe it did cut down on friction some tiny, tiny amount.

davidad

NO. NO need to. The rolling resistance of the tires is much higher than any loss from the bearings.

HillRider

IIRC, your hubs have sealed cartridge bearings, not the more common cup-and-cone, so there is little need to do any maintenance on them ever. Generally ride them until they get noisy or develop significant play and then replace the cartridges. I expect the rims will wear out before the bearing need to be replaced unless you routinely ride in very wet conditions.

Yes, cartridge bearings can have their seals removed, be relubed and the seals replaced but most rides don't bother.

As noted above, oil lube has to be renewed very frequently and has only an insignificant benefit.

Kimmo 

The placebo effect can be significant.