Kimmo

Taking this opportunity to once again lament how underrated Shimano hubs are. Not only are they nearly silent, but they have proper bearings, unlike almost anything else high end but Campy.

Oddly enough, when it comes to employing the cassette body as a stressed member to put the DS axle bearing where it belongs, the only other folks doing it are the likes of Joytech; there's nothing else above low end stuff that has the right sort of bearings in the right place, to my knowledge.

Seattle Forrest

You can sick those angry bees on people. That's the real reason people buy those hubs. Close second in a race? Bees can fly quick and they're very distracting.

Badger6

Care to elaborate? Because I'm feeling awful bad about all those DT Swiss hubs in my garage...

Kimmo

Can you adjust the preload on your bearings? Being DT Swiss, I'd guess the sealing is okay, but I'd be surprised if they're angular contact, which would surely require preload adjustment, which I can't recall ever seeing on a cartridge bearing hub. Meaning your wheels will rattle sooner or later, maybe even out of the box.

And your drive side rear axle bearing is near the centre of the hub, rather than next to the dropout where it belongs, which is dumb and crap.

If folks were to stop defending this junk, we might get something better, but nooo

msu2001la

I am certain that this study exists. Somewhere, someone has measured freehub drag and compared among various hubs.

Oddly enough, out of the 3 wheelsets I own, the quietest hub (an OEM Formula hub) has the most drag, based on my own unscientific bike-in-workstand test where I just spin up the rear wheel and let it go.

seypat

Best looking bling I have seen in a long time. Who cares about electronic shifting, deep CF wheels, bottle cages, etc, etc. This is smoking hot!

terrymorse 

The case for noisy freehubs:

Is there any better feeling when you're taking your turn at the front, putting in what you think is a heroic effort, and hearing the "buzz buzz" of the folks coasting behind you?

What a great feeling that is!

Badger6

If they were really junk, I think we'd all know by now. Your opinion of the quality doesn't make it a fact. None of my wheels "rattle" or have lateral play in them...out of the box or after thousands of miles of riding. If they did, I'd just grab a set of cartage bearings, and replace them, and be back on the road, no "artful" preloading required.

cuevélo

Carbon-Ti hubs have adjustable preload cartridge bearings.

Kimmo

You know how many times I've needed to replace cup and cone bearings in any of my stuff over nearly forty years?

None.

But apparently the simple act of setting preload within a rather wide window where the bearings don't self-destruct is actually some sort of arcane magic, judging by the number of rooted bearings I've come across as a mechanic.

Folks generally don't appreciate the finer points.

kingston 

You must be very diligent about maintenance. I also prefer cup and cone hubs and consider myself to be pretty conscientious but have managed to pit a few cones in my lifetime. They definitely require more attention than just setting the preload. I can understand why most people prefer cartridge bearings.

Kapusta

If you are getting decades of use out of you cup and cone hubs, thenI’ll wager you spend many, many times the time servicing your cup and cones than folks spend replacing quality cartridge bearings.

I have 4 Hope and DT Swiss (Hugi) hubs ranging from 12 to 20 years old. These are on my 2 most ridden bikes. In all that time I have had to replace the bearings in just one hub one time due to wear. Other than that, zero maintenance to these bearings. None.

Badger6

Yep. And the one wheel set I had that used cup and cone bearing type hubs required adjustment about once every 3 months. After a couple of years, when I gave that bike to my son, I bought an inexpensive set of DT Swiss wheels, and he's ridden it for 2 years with not so much as a thought about the bearings. Though we did grease the free hub pawls and rotor last year, probably time to do that again. Just for the record that free hub is pretty quiet.

Kapusta

They don’t have preload adjustment for the simple fact that they don’t need them.

Badger6

It does, I did it on the way to work this morning. There is zero drag if you keep pedaling!

growlerdinky

i like my hubs to sound just right.

Kimmo

I use quality gear, generally Ultegra or better, and it's always been set and forget. Maintenance? Pshaw. Proper hubs have proper sealing. Many, many cartridge bearing hubs have little more than the poxy dust seals meant for electric motor applications you find on so many of these bearings.

Baloney. You go and wiggle some rims; if you can feel the tiniest movement, that's an unraveling thread, and I've felt it plenty, even as I say, on new wheels. It's a stupid application for radial bearings, despite the lack of lateral loading on wheels - even with no rattle, without any preload, there's a hair's breadth of room before rattle sets in, then it's a short road to pitting.

And ye gods, the contamination. If a cartridge bearing that's otherwise fine gets contaminated, it might as well be junk. Sure, you could painstakingly disassemble and clean it in order to use it until it's actually worn out, but nobody does that except for that one guy. Cup and cone bearings on the other hand, are actually quite tolerant of contamination (yet are often better sealed anyway), since there's a natural escape path for grit to be pushed out of the way (like on the angular contact cartridge bearings that almost nobody uses).

I actually have a qualification at this stuff, you know. Is there anyone here poo-poohing my concern at this egregious yet overly prevalent shortcut, who's also actually a mechanic?

Kapusta

I remember hearing some people making your arguments 20+ years ago when I first started reading internet cycling boards. The arguments made some sense then, or at least raised valid concerns. However, the past several decades of real people in the real world using sealed bearing hubs have proven your concerns to be a non-issue with quality hubs. The seals on decent bearing actually work pretty well. Again, this is what the real world has proven.

Kimmo

It's a shame folks like me who like their stuff to be as good as it can be are such a minority. Cartridge bearings, particularly as generally implemented, are a marginal proposition; an insult to the discerning.

And cantilevered hubs are just plain stupid. I've seen a through-axle one fail at that totally unnecessary fulcrum in the middle of the hub. Best engineering practice is to give parts more than one job; the cassette body should be a structural member.

I really can't understand why folks who are prepared to pay for the best gear aren't actually interested in the best gear.

WhyFi

It's tough to be the only guy that knows what they're taking about.

Kimmo

Who knows. It's not people that, it's people who.

You might call it pedantry, but I call it not calling people objects. You might think that's NBD, but it matters.

Like goddamn crappy cartridge bearings and half freehubs.

phrantic09

Oh, boy

WhyFi

Oh, some people clearly *are* objects.

Kimmo

Okay, sure, nothing means anything.

It's a pomo paradise; no daylight between glorious excellence and scammy imitation.

seypat

Discussion's getting snarky. Time for the Turbospoke.