looking for a new bombproof front wheel to go with my pewter king 20mm front one.
is a king hubed rear wheel worth it.
i can buy 3 good strong rear wheels for the price…… ❓

I don’t see how the hub will make that much difference Ton to be honest. I think I’d rather go with a Hope on the rim of your choice and plenty of cash to rebuild them as needed.

Put the money into tubeless even, I don’t think I’ll go back to tubes on my MTB. Pinch puntured my 2.1 high rollers loads, not a single one in the 18 months I’ve ran them with a stans kit

you bought a king front wheel but moan about the price of a rear?

i posted wrong.
i bought a cheap front wheel.
i am thinking about buying a rear.
i did not moan, i asked if it was worth buying one.

you could also get 3 of these for the price.

If you have the money to spend of course its worth it, Gramps.

i ONLY use king hubs.
the ONLY disadvantage is the lack of adjustability, but BETD are solving that, as are CK themselves.

hubs are easy to maintain and very very good at coping with UK riding conditions.

the price can be prohibitive for some, but in the capex -v- opex , there’s no comparison…

beware the fronts have interface issues with HOPE disc brakes however.

oy, you cheeky little sod, less of the gramps……for 4 weeks anyway. 😉

You might also need the HD rear axle fella. Dont forget to add that into the cost.

will that fit in a standard dropout mate???

I had no end of problems with my CK rear hub. It wouldn’t stay tight, ever, no matter how many times I adjusted the bearings. Then I cracked the axle and had to spend £100 on replacing it with heavy duty axle because I didn’t have the original receipt. Then I had to replace the alloy free hub body because apparently they aren’t up to the job of taking a road cassette (which has fewer cogs on the carrier so the force applied to the allow free hub body is higher).
To top it all off, they need constant servicing at around £40 every six months or you can pay £150 for the dedicated tools to do it yourself.
Nuts really; they’re just expensive bike jewelry which don’t actually work.

i’d go for:

Goldtec Sam (ally or steel axle options)

or for more £ one from DT Swiss

my rear king hub on my 456 is 8 years old and NEVER had a bearing replacement, just ring drive service which i do myself in 30 mins max.
quite incredible… the bearing needed preload adjust during the first 50 hours use and thereafter, has NEVER needed adjustment since.

i’d agree, to the less mechanically minded, they are a faff, but once run in, are exemplary ime.

>Then I cracked the axle and had to spend £100 on replacing it with heavy duty axle because I didn’t have the original receipt.

King US warrantied my rear axle without receipt and I told them it was older than the five yr warranty period anyway 🙂

andywhit – ever replaced the bearing ?

my rear king hub on my 456 is 8 years old and NEVER had a bearing replacement, just ring drive service which i do myself in 30 mins max.

I recently sold a 6yr old hope xc still running on original bearings and still smooth. The Hope PROII on the rear of my dh bike has done in excess of 4,000 miles of DOWNHILL, mostly in the alps – totally abused and is still running fine on original bearings. These hubs only need a freehub regrease once or twice a year. Why is King better?

i think pro2 is the way i will go.
had em in the past with no worries…..
thanks for the advice people…

i think the hope’s are brilliant – modular, etc….
however, flange failures on hope have put me off even tho hope replaced the hub body foc.

My King also needed constant adjustment, the bearings seized on more than one occasion, they’re not light, they have tonnes of drag in the bearings and they’re very expensive.

So good why?

>andywhit – ever replaced the bearing ?

Nope, dropped a bit of light oil in them when I fitted the replacement axle but apart from that nothing.

“I ONLY use King hubs”

🙄

Oh and ton you are easy to wind up darling!

i have never had a CK component fail.
i have had hope, DT, mavic fail.
i vote with my feet.

I’ve seen King fail, several times

I was really lucky to get a King rear hub doe 212.00 from Stiff right before they jumped up in price and Stiff removed their discount on the product so got a bargain.
I admitted back then that I didn’t think it was worth 212.00 and certainly wasn’t worth the well over 300 quid list price, IMHO.

But…..

since having it a while I’m sold on it. The way it engages is amazing and makes technical up hill stuff far far easier.
I also love the buzzzzzzzzz of a thousand angry bees as you roll along.

Get one Ton. You’ll love it. I love mine. 😀

It took a bit of faff as the bearings bedded in having to adjust it a bit but this hasn’t needed to be done for months now so guess its bedded in and set right. To be truthful it takes a twist of an allen key to loosen and a slight rotation of a thing outside the hub before re tightening he allen key. Hardly brain surgery and you don’t even need to remove the wheel so i can’t see why it bothers some folk.

mine haven’t and they’re up to 8 years old 🙂
i do however perform the correct routine servicing.

glad to hear it. Do you ONLY buy Levi jeans? 😉

I’ve got 6 CK hubs (3 x 24mm fronts, 2 x ISO disc rears and a SS Disc rear) they’ve done around 8000 miles between them and to be honest the only one that’s given me any trouble is the SS disc hub. It kept needing adjustment and wore out the first ringdrive in about 1000 miles, CK sent me a replacement axle and that helped for a while, but I recently changed the two main bearings (after 4000 miles) and that seems to have solved the problem. Looking back now I think the problems stem from poor maintenance on my part when I first had it, leading to premature bearing wear.

If I needed a new hub I’d go for CK again without hesitation.

my hubs have done way more miles than that.

King are good, but overpriced IMHO for what you get. And they do need plenty of TLC, but at that price you’re minded to give them it anyway.

Next set of wheels will have Goldtec hubs, probably Dracos. Fancy a change and they seem well thought out with decent user experience.

8000 miles between 6 hubs is not much 1200 miles each? I would expect them to have needed do fettling in that time. The tandem front hub big un was 5 yrs old when I got it and now another 6000ish miles on it with only one bearing replacement. Reare we did rip the drive ring but taht is cos we is animals.

However according to the tandem MTB boys the CK tandem special is the only hub that no one has broken

TJ I reckon you could break one.

Maybe stw could sponsor it?

I pledge £5. Only another £1M to go!

I do volunteer us as destructive testing machines.

teej, wot is on the rear of your tandem mate.

Tony, go for the King HD rear. I have the service tools. A little TLC twice a year is all they need. Any luck with the DMR yet?

trev, gonna have a go tomorrow.

teej, wot is on the rear of your tandem mate.

her name is Julie,
🙂

ton – Member

teej, wot is on the rear of your tandem mate.

A hope Big Un. a bit overkill for XC solo use I would have thought – even if your name is ton.

LOL @ Mark

I used to run King’s but made a concious decsion to standardise on Hope ProII. I found the Kings would need more regular fettling to keep them sweet such as play developing in the rear wheel so needed to adjust the rear hub a fair bit with the special cone tool!! This was across a number of well serviced wheels.

The ProII is a split micro second slower to engage but for social and trails riding it’s wholly irrelavent and not noticiable unless being very picky, and as I don’t have any King’s left I don’t get to compare like for like.

If it were me I’d sell the King you have get a pair of ProII wheels.

Another CK fan here they needed adjusting once after a few rides and have remained smooth and well adjusted since.
Every hope rear hub i have had has broken in some form or another inside of 6 months, normaly a fault with the freehub body, only so many times i am going to put up with having to send something back under warranty before i stop buying it…….. up side hope’s warranty dept is pretty good lol

Simon

Another case of needing constant bearing pre-load adjustment here. It just kept coming loose and needing tightening.

I’d never touch them again. The only reason I can see to pay extra is the fast pickup (Pro2 is nearly as fast) and durability (Pro2 has been less hassle). So never again for me, but I’m at a loss to explain people who like them.

Ton – sorry for not getting back to you. Yes mate the HD axle fits into a standard dropout.

T’is just made of something tougher….granite or something…