Keep this a secret!! People will think we are bike snobs.

That's insane for ball and cone hubs- 2000 miles is less than every other month. And you certainly don't need to REPLACE the balls at that interval (or 3000 miles). I guess if you obsessively tinker with your equipment, it might be necessary. Then again, I'm on Campy hubs

You can keep riding on these parts for quite a while.

What I'm saying is the balls start to break down, small pieces get in there and the cone starts to get small pits in it. Making it impossible to really be as good as a nice new hub. No slack in the adjustment and free spinning. If you carefully adjust enough bearings and take them apart and look at then you can see this. It's not obvious that the balls are breaking down without a magnifying glass. That's where the dirt comes from though in hubs that never even get dirty. Then the cone gets the miniscule part jammed into it by a ball. If you look close without a magnifying glass you can see most cone problems at 3000 miles.

And yes some hubs are better than others. I'm not talking about older record hubs with the grease fitting where you can purge the grease whenever you want to. For example.

Try taking out some balls at 3000 miles and look at them with a magnifying glass.

One last thing.......most Campy hubs are excellent !

BTW the road dura ace hubs have a metal dust cover with a rubber weather seal under it. The dura ace TRACK hubs have a different dust cover and no rubber seal. They are faster and not protected from the elements as well. The road hubs are better for the road. This has something to do with the track hubs wearing out to fast. !!

the DAtrack hubs actually do come with seals that fit into a little groove on the cone, but you usually have to install them yourself.

Ugly, sure, I can buy that opinion. But you've got no proof on the "Older they have issues". I've seen a LOT of used Cannondales that are still running. Just cause you can't throw it against a pole like you do your steel tank, doesn't mean they are crap.

The "AL is crap" band wagon.. sails again?

And, I ride an old steel frame fixie, I own a brand new lightwieght steel frame (not yet built) AND I own a 98 Cannondale R600 that I've put a decent amount of milage one.

I don't really have a problem with Cannondales (AKA, Cracknfails), they're just not for me. I always thought they were pretty cool when I was a kid just because they were doing something different. When I finially got to ride one (just swaped bikes with a friend for a mtb ride) I wasn't impressed, but I'll admit "crap" is a little harsh. To me the ride just felt dead. It was a CAAD 5 hardtail (I think) with a Lefty and really really really crappy Coda brakes. Dragging a foot worked better than using these brakes. I gotta say, I was really disappointed because I wanted it to be what I heard it was, a light, stiff, lively ride. The ride was nothing compared to my 99 S-Works hardtail frame, which was made in the USA. I'll give C-dale props for still making frames in this country and for giving up on their own suspension innards and getting a company that knows how to make suspension to do it for them.

That piece is actually called a dust cover by Shimano, part #23t 0700 on the hb-7710-f front track hubs.
That is the piece that hides the bearings from view. That's not what I'm talking about. That piece
covers a little bit and will keep out a lot, but not as much as the road hub, it’s different.

The road hub has a dust cover that does that function, Shimano part# 22z 9803 cone w/dust cap and seal. The dust cover is metal and is part of the cone assembly. Then it has an inner dust cap part # 22z 0500 and a seal ring part # 214 0600 on the hb-7700 dura ace front hubs.

It is very different, the road hubs are very well sealed, or covered. To see the difference go on the Shimano web site and look at the exploded parts view of those hubs

no, that piece is actually called a seal ring. and here is a photo of the ones that came with my hubs:

well I guess the lesson here is two fold.

1) The road hubs are MUCH better sealed for the road, they are very different than the track hubs.

2) Shimano changes things, from year to year or when they think it's important.

#2 causes lots of confusion when we assume there is one product and that they are all the same.

at this point all I can say is go to the Shimano 2004 web sight, 2005 is incomplete or I can't get there. find the pdf file that shows the exploded view of the front track hub.
It is a good enough diagram so you can see the difference.

Together we have uncovered two variations, but I'm sure as the years go back there are many others, so it's always going to be a little confusing. Shimano does that with many of their parts. Somehow we forget that. It's like cars, you have to know the year and even the month sometimes. I always get surprised by what I learn from this forum.

What we are doing is like going to order a car part with out knowing what year the car is. I can't believe I didn't bring that up before.

Where is Eli Whitney when we need him?