sealed vs loose bearings
 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3677329123

"These were built with non-perforated flanges and stronger forged bodies so they didn't break under radial lacing or high tension the way Campy track hubs tended to do. And unlike the Suzue, Miche, and other similar hubs, which use sealed bearings and create significant drag from the bearing seals, these work with loose bearings. If you want, you can lubricate just with TriFlow and the wheels will spin forever."

does this make sense? is this talking about cartridge bearings causing drag?

yeah...it makes sense. if you try to spin a phil hub on it's own (without a wheel), it's super sticky and draggy. sometimes, i really feel it on the bike that has them, but most of the time it's just super silky smooth. i have a set of those D/A hubs too. really nice. i can fly on the bike that has them...sometimes i'm afraid to ride it because it's too tempting to just go super fast.

in that pic, the little brown ring right next to the lower hub is a seal in case you ride them in muck...that seal causes all kinds of drag though, way worse than anything a phil or even a miche hub would put out. i tried it once and it was so heinous that i took the hub apart again an hour later. i also rode my rear hub through three years of boston wintery muck and scum without an overhaul. i opened it up this winter and it was fine. i probably should've overhauled it sooner because the bearings were bone dry, but...live and learn.

i wouldn't lube them only with tri-flow...that's just begging for premature wear/siezure.

oh, and i wouldn't lace those radially for a million bucks. you could probably do it and be fine, because i've seen a bunch of them done that way, but the holes are really close to the edge of the flange, and the flange tapers right after the holes, so there's much less flange there. i also heard that it voids shimano's warranty for those hubs.

phils are much safer to radially lace because the flanges are so damn thick.

It strikes me that he amount of drag from seals varies pretty widely. I've felt some that, while smooth, were very stiff because of the seals. When I first picked up the White Industries Eno hub, just holding the hub and trying to spin it, it didn't really go anywhere. Now that it's a whole wheel, though, it just spins forever. Very smooth, minimal drag.

by 'sealed' yall mean 'cartridge' and not just the dust cap, correct?

for racers, it seems like drag would be a serious issue. so if what this person is saying is true, why wouldnt more competition track hubs have loose bearings?

re-read Fugazi-dave's post....think carefully it has some interesting points in it.

new dura-ace hubs (7710) are loose ball. i reckon campy pista hubs are as well. i can't say anything about the older shimano high-flange (7600), but i can't imagine they'd use cartridge bearings either.

The whole sealed/cartridge bearing vs loose ball issue is usually relevant to track usage only. Most trackies obsess about seal drag to the extent that they prefer loose ball bottom brackets and hubs to all others. If you think about it, it makes sense. Track races are run only in non rainy controlled conditions for short periods of intense activity. That is in direct opposition to the road fixed gear usage of any weather longer periods of use under varying environments. If you want a trouble free hub you would probably due well to use one of the sealed cartridge bearing hubs and ride without worrying about them. If on the other hand you want the ultimate in performance from the bike, and you don't mind re-greasing the hubs and accept the more frequent maintenance requirements, then the loose ball hubs would be more desirable. Those are the tradeoffs.


fixedgearhead

BUMP

Did Shimano ever make 7600 series cartridge hubs, high flange?
Or did somebody put something in my water bottle before I went to the LBS today?

you got dosed.

Hmmm. I'm gonna have to go back and check it out. This is killin' me, I coulda sworn I saw it with my own eyes, but I didn't think there was anything odd about a 6001 bearing in there at the time.

There is nothing that rolls like a good loose ball hub. The 30yo campy hubs on my maserati are the smoothest hubs I have ever fealt.. like hot butter. And the old campy bb has a screw section on the spindle to force grit out as you pedal.. cool, but probably not that effective.

caveat: i coulda gotten dosed too, but i'm betting it was you...

Well, I'm going to pick up a 10day old CK headset for $40 while I'm there too, and that is rather trippy. Perhaps its some kind of gas in the store. I dunno.

if they have two, can i have one?

(lemme know the outcome of the hub investigation too, i'm curious now).

Are there not replacement bearings for the cartrigded systems that will have knife edge or less draggy seals than you have with stock? You can also cut the seals for track use

Ok, I went to the shop and the guy told me he was going to keep the CK on the frame he was selling. His explanation was that someone had agreed to buy his Pista frame, so he was going to take out the CK and sell it seperatley. So today, I am told, the guy changed his mind about buying it, so the mech. I was buying from decided to keep it on and sell the whole thing on Ebay. He the proceeded to complain about how much of an ******* people who tell you they are going to buy something and then back out of it. Hmmm.

So I quickly left, and did not ask about the hubs again. I'll chalk that up as a halucination, or at most a legend.

How often do you service looseball hubs? Just asking cuz the hubs im using now are my first looseball....