king don't make track hubs.

but if they did holy **** so much money would be made. phils are so ugly in comparison. even white are ugly compared to king hubs.

and for what it's worth i trust a technical rep from japan FAR more than the word of "some messenger friend" because THESE DAYS a lot of those dudes don't actually ride like they want you to think they ride and know even less about parts other than they swear by the cool stuff that they get on principle. BFSSFG does the same thing only we never ride our bikes so there's no pretense.

1. Suzue Promax
2. Dura Ace
3. White Industries
4. Campy Record
5. Phil

Excuse us, erherrrm, campagnolo record pista. Better? :p

I am very pleased with my Miche track hubs.

any cartridge hub be made "phil" smooth my installing some phil bearings.

if a hub rolls smooth, isn't stripped out or ridiculously heavy you wouldn't notice the difference between it and any high dollar hub out there in terms of it's functionality.

Its absurd to think that anyone can objectively rank track hubs. There isn't a shred of performance difference between the lowliest Formula hub and the most expensive boutique hubs. Whatever mincroscopic different there is between bearings makes absolutely no difference to speed or how "smooth" the wheel feels when riding it.
When you buy fancy hubs you are paying for reputation, fashion, and origin of manufacture. But in reality, they all work the same.

If you want to blow money on a good FG wheelset, put your money where it counts...the spokes and rims.

best2worst
 

You mean,(material,machining and engineering?)
I wonder if one person(on this forum)has owned what would be considered the top 5 best hubs?

no order:
Zipp
Shimano
Royce
Phil
Campy
?
?
?
lot's of good hubs being made.
http://www.royceuk.co.uk/secure/imag...gories/490.JPG

Exactly... Know phils are awesome bearings, but my next replacement set will probably come from local industrial bearing supplier instead of bike shop, just to see what they can hook me up with.

circus monkey!

You've obviously never been given a spill by a rep before, although Shimano tech reps in general really know their ****, they have been known to let the bull**** fly, whenever there is little chance of us lowly shop employees disproving them, after all their job is to shift product.

and i was, using the statements of my messenger friends as corroboration of what the rep said, One dude i know has been rolling on them daily for over 3 years and whenever he repacks the hubs the factory bearings look like they came straight from he factory yesterday.

Even my ultegra hubs need new bearings every 2 years at least! usually every 6-8 months.

+1 for the king hubs, I think king missed out on a lot of cash there, When i asked the Orange sports rep (Canadian king distributor) if he knew if such hubs were planned he told me he got laughed at when he asked King the same question, but that was about 2 years ago, a lot has changed since then.

and lowly shop employees know how to blow that warm air when there is little chance of a customer disproving them. after all, their job is to shift product.

I don't know about this. You can feel the difference, spinning some wheels, from others.

A spinning unweighted wheel has very little relationship to a spinning weighted wheel. Besides, bearings wear and aren't always adjusted properly by the mechanic and/or user. That is not the fault of the hub, and it makes almost no difference when you are riding the bike anyway...its certainly not something you can feel. Tires have much much more dramatic effects on rolling resistance than hub bearings. When properly adjusted and maintained, the cheapest bearing in the cheapest formula hub is not going to amount to 1 watt of difference compared to the smoothest Phil Hub in the world. And I am not suggesting that Formula hubs require more maintenance than Phils either. I have been beating the **** out of a formula track hub for years. I have never touched it with a cone wrench, and it is still as smooth and buttery as a greased baby's ass.

Not going to deny that. But We're also the ones who decide if you get a discount and if your gear gets warrantied when you break it. In my experience lying to customers is never worth it, but a certain amount of "salesmanship" is expected. From us underlings, tech reps flown in on promotion tours, right up to the riders they sponsor it's all part of the sales game. Trek reps are by far the worst, they would make gobbles blush with the marketing-speak they try and put over on us, and it's almost like believe it themselves.

we've done some hack ass tests on builds the the same rim/spokes and some hubs will spin surprisingly longer than others (not that i'm one to really care, rocking my major one's stock alex/formula set right now) . My measure of quality is more about how long they keep that smoothness, My formula loose balls seized and skidded me to a stop within a year, largely due to laziness on my part, but some shimano loose balls i abuse similarly are still going strong with smooth races, although it's been a year since i've repacked'em so they could be dying, but those formulas died years ago, and i've been riding the shimanos longer, and i bought them used!

But i'm inclined to agree, spokes+rim+a proper hand-build with fancy ass DT spoke tension-o-meter is really where you're really going to feel it. I think forumlas are great@17.50$ cost, they're everything you could "need" in a hub.

Build 300-500 wheels per year including LOTS of single speed...

With criteria being hubs intended for cog/lockring or single speed freewheels:

[Sealed Cartridge Bearing]

1. Phil Wood

1a. Paul

2. Chosen A3633/A3735/A3635 M9/M10 and M14 series. (Halo, Velocity, Unknown Bike Company)

2a. The Dura Ace and Record track hubs.

2b. The White Industries Eccentric Hub.

3. Formula (Origin8, IRO, Gran Comp, Velocity), Miche, Suzue

4. Quando DQF series.

5. Novatech (Dimension, All City, SOMA, GodSpeed, Raleigh...)

Despite the bearing end-play right out of the box, I'll take the Quando's over the Novatech's any day. Tired of broken axles, stripped axles, and stripped hub shell threads that plague the base Novatech hub.

In terms of all-around quality, price point and durability and reliability - I have to admit the Formula wins. Probably explains why they're very dominant in the market.

With regular 5-year bearing maintenance, the Phil's and likely the Paul's will last forever...you get exactly what you pay for.

=8-)

what probably hapened here is the shimanos were tensioned properly and the formulas were not. maybe *****ty vs good balls but i doubt it.

i had a bearing in a paul hub $h!t the bed in 3 months once (ceramic no less) and i have had stock bearings in my formulas last for years now.

rating hubs is kinda dumb unless your looking for the prettiest or most ethically built. your not gonna convince me (and no one should believe) that one really brand works better than another.

"Tensioned?"

=8-|

The cones were properly adjusted, I just repacked them with madd pitted bearings that should have been replaced, and kept riding even though i new the hubs were being eaten, one bearing finally shredded, and with the play that created allowed bits of bearing to wedged themselves between the races and the the bearing, lasted for a few days after that before it seized up. but by that point i had my Open pros and white industries sitting around waiting to be built so i didn't care.

^ oh that is gold.

why has no one brought up Victoire or Velo Orange Grand Cru?

edit: oh and FWIW i will never allow another Surly product anywhere on my wheelset.

victoire
 

probably no one here has riden or even held these hubs?

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net..._4670479_n.jpg

There's a lot more to a hub than bearings, yet that seems to be the main concern in this thread.

+1 Axle+flange strength, and flange width and height will all play a role in determining the qualities of the final product.

yet these effects will be minimal, spoke, rim and wheel-build quality will play a bigger part than bearing or flange quality.

Don't forget cog/lockring threading.

Yeah. Raleigh seriously skrewed me when it came to giving me stock hubs that weren't standardized and instead, a splined system. I've never taken the time to look around, but I've never seen threading like that, which would have been a headache when it came to changing gears.