touring rear hubs
 

Hello everyone,
Planning a bicycle tour next year across egypt approx 5500km and may be will dig deeper into africa to kenya or may be further (approx 12000km) i have a Novara Randonee bicycle; i've already made several upgrades to it. SLX rear derailleur + XT cassette, tubus ergo lo-rider, brooks flyer special, shimano spd pedals, schwalbe dureme marathon, fenders, the fram is really good. I'm now looking into building new wheels. i've contacted peter white. like his attitude. He suggested that i go for velocity chukker rims, 36 wheelsmith DB14 spokes, XT shimano hub. I'm just a bit confused about the hub. is the XT good enough for my tour? i've noticed the velocity ATB rear hubs are cartridge sealed, are they better than the XT? or should i go for the more expensive white industries (even though it's out of my budget) thanks

the very best of luck on your planned tour sounds exciting if not a tad hard going.
i think if i could afford it i would go with phil wood touring specific hub actually the whole wheel build seem's he's the dog's b.......ks when it comes t o building wheels that last the trip.

How much are you carrying?

shimano XT hubs are good hubs. people have beat the crap out of them on the trail (mountain biking) for decades. you can get better, but it's gonna cost you (WI, Phil, etc)

well i wish i could buy the phil woods of course. this is like a dream; just waaaaaaaaay out of budget.

i just want to know will XT hubs do it for me? or will the velocity be better??? does anyone had any experience with them. you can view them here:
http://www.velocityusa.com/default.asp?contentID=568

i think they are interesting since they are cartridge sealed and read at some post that they are just as good as the high ends... any clue?

@ironmac.

i weigh around 80kg that is almost 170lbs and i'll be carrying a load of about 40kgs say 100lbs

Shimano's tandem hubs are modestly priced , and offer the possibility of having more spare spokes in the wheel, 40 or 48.

they ship with a wide axle for mounting a drag brake on the left side , but you can use different axles and spacers and put them in a 135 frame
and the treading for the brake is common so for a backup you can screw on a single speed freewheel, for a backup gear should the cassette pack up...

My favorite touring rear wheels have been 48 spoke, when I broke 1 spoke I have 47 left, and 15 minutes of roadside truing
got me back on the road without replacing the spoke, that was delayed to when it was more convenient, to pull off the gear cluster.. it's always behind the gear cluster.

I used one of Phil's freewheel hubs , they never failed , the axles are so strong they eliminate the main benefit of freehubs, the axle does not bend or break.

Freewheels unscrew with a Big wrench which I don't have to carry, riding on 47 spokes until i found some one with a big adjustable spanner never was a problem, every farmer with a tractor has one.

My current favorite rear hub now is Rohloff. internal gears, range of an MTB
in a damp oiled chamber out of the elements.

.. but you are going down the Derailleur path ..

just stay away from Aluminum and Titanium stuff for touring use , axles and such.
it's overspending and can be too light for reliability.

Phil Wood / White / Arvon hubs are among the best out there... I was a fan of Arvon hubs before I started working with the company since they are so well made and every bit as good as a Phil Wood. These are still made to use a freewheel and I run a set on my racing bike, am building a set for my touring bike, and will be building up another for my tandem.

Figure that any good quality cartridge bearing hub will last 30,000 miles before it needs any kind of service and that servicing them is about as easy as it gets as you don't require any special tools to change the bearings.

i have thousands of miles on my xt and also sealed velocity 40 spoke rears hubs, both laced to velocity dyad rims.

i thought i'd prefer the ease of the sealed velocity hub, because i don't overhaul the xt often enough to believe i get it exactly right.

that said, the xt is still smooth as the day i started riding it five years ago, many overhauls later, and the velocity is not nearly as smooth.

it's now time to replace the two wheels, each with about 10,000 miles on them. i don't think shimano makes a 40 spoke 135 mm hub anymore. i wasn't happy enough with the velocity hub to get another one (though their rims are great). so i'm replacing the velocity hub with a phil wood (i'm a high mileage rider and it'll pay for itself over time). if xt still came in 40 spoke versions, i would've gotten that instead. but i'm using the old xt hub on the new wheel.

it's possible the velocity rear hub is serviceable, but the bike store i go to said they couldn't service it.

fwiw,

jeff baron
http://bicycletouringoncarfreepaths.org/

yea no 40 spoke XT's.. that's why I suggested buying their tandem hub, they come with a 140 or 145mm wide axle,
but the axle's thread is the same 10x1mm , you just need to be a bit clever, and change the left end spacers and the length of the axle.

I read Aarons bike repair in Seattle uses tandem Shimano hubs, and does that,
to build beefy rear wheels for their Big Dummy , Xtracycle builds for cargo hauling purposes.