Judging by the title you are probably thinking this man is insane, surely?

You may be partially right but here is the dilemma.

I love single speed. We all know the pros and cons that ss can bring. It frees your mind to concentrate on the surroundings without your subconscious constantly worrying about the mechanical shortcomings of changing gear.

You only concentrate purely on power and braking. How hard do I pedal or how hard do I brake. Its that simple. Great design always comes through simplicity and its this simple approach which makes ss truly a liberating experience.

I’m by no means a zealot. I was lured into ss through a snapped chain. My rear derailleur was shot and my chain snapped which meant I could no longer ride. So instead of buying a new one I removed a few links and placed a very very taught chain around a smallish cog. I rode like this for several days and If im going to be perfectly honest with you after a day or two I was hooked!

The strangest thing is initially you reach for the gear shifter as you normally would but realise its no longer there because you removed it. Very strange feeling that took around a week to break the habit.

Once the honeymoon period was over and my legs got stronger It was insanely addictive and incerdibly quiet both mechanically and mentally. There is little thought process going on upstairs when you are ssing it.

Finally for all those who say single speed is not flexible enough I say BS. The only, I repeat, the only time you crave for more gears is on the flat. Hills rarely become a problem. Your legs get so adjusted you change your mindset and attack the shit out of everything. Hills are not a problem unless they are super vertical in which case it makes sense to get off the bike and push-but whilst doing so you have the best opportunity to stretch lots of additional muscle groups which you wouldn’t ever do spinning. Infact its much better for you to run up the hill with the bike. Single speed can be and usually in my case is faster. Especially uphill!!!

HERE COMES THE QUESTION.

Could people vote on the best off-road ss hubs giving the pros and cons of each and their invaluable usage experience.

I want a quiet single speed hub but it seems they are too pricey. True Precision Stealth Hubs come to mind buy they are shit by all accounts.

I’m losing sleep researching and I’m seriously considering just getting a 2012 model Shimano XT m788 hub with spacer kit which would be quiet and cheap and very efficient. Any opinions would literally make me sane person once again. Yours truly. Mr Crazy head.(Temporary title)

I have to say I have skim read your somewhat lengthy posting 😉

From personal experience Hope Trials. Can be easily build with no offset. With its bolt up axle is rock solid and stiff. Easy to work on. Freehub isn’t made of cheese. Relatively cheap.

Down side – it is a loud one.

That said with a smear of grease to the pawls it can be made quieter ….. not that I have tried this.

any disc single speed hub and a screw on Shimano freewheel for super quietness..

like:
click for Surly Hub

From what I’ve read the Surly hubs are utter poo. Users reports having to constantly adjust. Shame really coz their frames get a mass following.

Shimano screw on freewheels are quiet, but they are also not that well sealed, and the pickup on them is atrocious.

If you want a non-intrusive sound then my vote would be for a decent DT Swiss cassette hub, they are reliable, robust, well sealed, easy to look after and cassette hubs do offer more in the way of chainline adjustment and the option to use the wheel on a geared bike in case of emergency.

Personally I like the Hope singlespeed/trials hub as mentioned above or a decent disc screw-on with a white industries freewheel, I run a few different SS bikes and not one has the same rear hub :-/

Chris King SS hubs are great for pickup but to be honest I would quite happily trade the one I have for a Hope SS hub as it’s 99% as good for 1/3 the price.

Hear nothing but praise for the Hopes. The kings are just way too overpriced for my tastes. £400 for a hub! Come on. What next? All mountain carbon fibre wheels. Oh yeah – i forgot. They already do them for like a trillion spondoolies.

The hopes are genuinely very good but they are very very noisy.

umm. guess you read stuff on mtbr then?
surly hubs use cartridge bearings. there’s no adjustment. removal of screw-on FW will require a tube over a spanner on the tool, but it’s not difficult.
very similar design to the old on-one hubs i run. bearings are about £2.50 a pop, don’t leave them so long that they disintegrate when you remove and it’s a 10 min job to change them.
WI freewheel is not as loud as a hope, but not super quiet.
if you really want quiet then go shimano cassette hub and service your cup and cones every now and then.
personally i prefer the simplicity of knocking cart bearings in and out, and service the WI once a year.

I’m from shakey Wakey, middle of this shit hole island called Grand Britannia and whilst I’m no patriot, I’ll buy British solely based on the price/performance ratio and at the moment Hope seem to be ticking all the right boxes.

Would a hope ss hub and stans flow rims be a perfect combo? Seems everywhere I look people are loving the hope and stans partnership.

If I get a single speed hub then would flows be overkill or could I shed some weight on the rims and still hammer the odd downhill?

at the moment Hope seem to be ticking all the right boxes.

except that you said you wanted a quiet hub, the Hope SS hub is one of the loudest out there….don’t get me wrong I love it, but you specifically said you wanted quiet.

One advantage of a standard cassette hub and a spacer kit is that I can use the wheel in my geared bike if I need to. Taking the wheels off my singlespeed as spares for mountain mayhem this weekend.

Nice surly sprocket and spacer kit works well for me.

You are right about noise. Forgot about that one. It seems its a given with all but a few ss hubs. I heard grease would reduce it somewhat but even that has trade-offs. This is why I keep coming back to XT hubs. The new 2012 range has been re-vamped but I cannot find any reviews or mid to long term verdicts on the net. I’d go shimano in a heartbeat if reliability wasn’t a factor. I know xt hubs of past have suffered but the new ones promise to be much more adept and robust. Unfortanately we have all heard that before.

have a look at the DT Swiss hubs, they are quite quiet and very reliable

I’d go for a surly hub with a WI screw on freehub… well, i did and it was excellent…

i did sell it though, as they were paired to some hefty rims and i wanted something lighter for my race bike. now on a superstar SS hub, which is ok actually (although there is a horrific noise coming from it at the moment!)

A little off topic but those Bellvita Breakfast biscuits are superb. They are going to make a lot of fat birds even fatter. Bless their calorie obsessed world. How hard can it be. Eat, exercise, eat, exercise. Job done. You don’t need to know the science behind a celery stick. If you do then become a body-builder with zero self confidence. Rant over…

I got this far and switched off. sorry.

We all know the pros and cons that ss can bring. It frees your mind to concentrate on the surroundings without your subconscious constantly worrying about the mechanical shortcomings of changing gear.

I could have done a one liner but I didn’t.

alfine, best of all worlds.

So I was a little tired and perhaps ranted on a little too long. Here is my shorter version.

Best ss hub with rim for am/xc abuse. Big jumps and big air for little money senor.

forexpipz – Member
From what I’ve read the Surly hubs are utter poo. Users reports having to constantly adjust. Shame really coz their frames get a mass following.

Balls to that. I have been using them for years with zero problems. The best hubs ever

tried every thing from King to deore and spacers.
DMR Revolver,White Ind. screw on.job done.

Keef. Care to go into a little more detail about the dmr hub.

err, yeah.
you won’t get long term reviews on 2012 parts as it’s still 2012…
there’s enough information on the parts above now. i forgot the dmr. it’s again basically the same as the surly and the on-one, and any number of other cartridge hubs out there. when the rim starts wobbling about, knock the old bearings out, knock new ones in, you’re good to go.
anyhow, maybe best you just pick whichever one you like the look/sound of, then go ride your bike.
good luck.

Another vote for Surly + White Industries here

Hope hub, wipe out most of the thick grease in the bit where the pawls are and replace with a glug of oil (I use Pedros Synlube as I have a big bottle of it and I no longer use it on my chain). Makes it much quieter (and stops them from freezing in winter) and when it gets noisy in a few months pull it apart and stick some more oil in it.

Next question please 😉

Zero-dished wheels with SS-specific hubs and a freewheel look cool(*). That is, up until the point where you need to change the gear ratio in a hurry, when sprockets on a conventional freehub suddenly seem very attractive….

(*) For some value of the word ‘cool’.

… although having said that, changing *fixed* sprockets is very easy, don’t even need any tools.

Should I just go XT and dmr spacer kit with the superbly machined renthal up front. I’m not planning on changing ratios that often, if at all. Been riding my current cog for months now with zero issues.

I wanna rape the hell out of the down hills so not too sure if the xt hub or even the surly for that matter will take the punishment I’m about to unleash.

Come on Lee Quarry lets see your inners!!!

messiah – Member
Hope hub, wipe out most of the thick grease in the bit where the pawls are and replace with a glug of oil (I use Pedros Synlube as I have a big bottle of it and I no longer use it on my chain). Makes it much quieter (and stops them from freezing in winter) and when it gets noisy in a few months pull it apart and stick some more oil in it.

Next question please

How much quieter are we talking here and is the hope worth the extra over say a surly. Will it take a downhill raping? Anyway to put fatty axles in these ss hubs?

sorry for delay in replying forexpipz,
Imo,you won’t go wrong with a DMR Revolver,takes a standard screw on,standard size cartridge bearing (which last a year or two in Cannocks finest grinding mud)which are easy to service/replace.they all seem to be nutted axels now,but the old ones are allen bolt/QR giving you more options,theyre cheap at around £45. and they’re available in black or silver what more could a SS’er desire ?

shimano freehub (bar the newer crap ones)

profile. i use the 6speed version and a spacer kit it’s still dishless like the ss one. nutted axle and bombproof. lots of engagement points and not quite as noisy, sounds like a cross between a king and a hope.
not the lightest though

Pulled the trigger a few weeks ago and went with the loudest of all. Hope. Ironically I love the sound more than anything else on my bike. Its loud as hell and Its freakin’ brill.