Any experiences yet with Superstar’s Sentinel Rims and Tesla hubs in 29er? Opinions please as considering these as a cheaper and subtly heavier alternative to a crests build…

I have not had much luck with my tesla hubs both times freehub issues I will never use again sorry to say the damage is done with me

I’ve got the Tesla hubs with Pacenti rims, had them since Jan with no issue no issue and absolutely love them, maybe it’s just its a bit of a QC issue and luck of the draw?

Bearings are shite cheapo things that will last 300 miles max!

“cheap nasty” 🙄 SKF bearings in my teslas.

Haven’t had cause to look at the bearings yet, at least it’s a relatively cheap to upgrade once they go, still think the wheel set is good value for money though.

My local bike mechanic says he won’t bother with expensive bearings, grab a stack of cheapish sealed bearings for almost same price and off you go, in his opinion the expensive ones dont last long enough to justify the cost difference and changing them out is no biggie. he is an ex XC and DH racer and been servicing biked for 20 yrs???

Bearings are quality SKFs, not the cheapos like those in the Switch hubs. However freehub failed twice in my tesla in 200 miles, just got a refund. You might be lucky but after two long walks home I wouldn’t bother personally.

My Tesla/Sentinel wheelset is going strong after 200+ miles of hard AM use. Spokes are going to need a bit of retensioning soon though, but I’d expect that with any wheelset.

Have heard a few things about freehubs, but nobody’s had an aftercare issue with either a replacement or refund. I’d suggest this is probably a few vocal people online – the telling statistic is of course number of failures versus number sold. And we all know loads of Hope hubs have failed, but there isn’t the same STW condemnation of Hope as a brand. Look anywhere else on the net and it’s all positive re: Superstar, so I wouldn’t give too much credence to what you read on here.

🙂

Assume the steel freehub body would avoid this issue? Anyone know how much the weight difference is?

I have Superstar/Sentinels and they are great. No problems with the free hub, rims are fairly light and good looking.
1300 miles so far and no probs…

Jay

I went with a steel free hub on my Switch hubs, best part is you can buy cheap cassettes without them gouging the splines on the free hub. Hassle free swap when I reported my fault, I had the wheels back within 3days, postage refunded too I think.

but I’d expect that with any wheelset.

stop buying cheap wheelsets then…

they shouldn’t need retensioning, sign of a poor build.

Several complaints of telsa hub failures on other threads, so combined with the hit and miss nature of their build quality I would think more about it and whether it is worth the initial saving.

Spokesman wheel on ebay does good price wheels, although no experience of them. He is cheaper on his web site. Uses Novatec hubs which I think are reasonably decent – strada and others use them.

Otherwise there are often good hope hoop deals around, or buy 2nd hand.

Hope hub rear build is around £200, you can get a superstar rear build using rebranded novatec hubs for £80.

@andyrm, I wouldn’t be too happy with that tbh, no quality wheelset I’ve ever had has needed retensioned after so short a time. OTOH even if you include the price of a better rebuild into the price of a wheelset it’s still not bad value at all.

Halfords are doing Hope Hoops at a good price, look for the other thread talking about them today.

To be honest, I’ve had similar with everyone’s favourite Hope/Stan’s combo as well, just needing a little bit of retightening. But of course because Hope are from Yorkshire, nobody ever says anything about any of the problems with their products! One of my mates is a brilliant wheelbuilder so can get them good and tight again – my feeling is that it’s probably the difference between a machine built wheel over a hand built one that’s then manually destressed, but it’s easily rectified for next to no money so doesn’t even register as anything more than a maintenance cost like brake pads.

As Northwind says, even if you factor in say £30 to get a nice manual retension, you’re looking at bloody good value. My previous SS wheels (Switch on Alex Supra 30) were still in fantastic condition after a season of UK & European racing.

I’d say go for them.

🙂

I had freehub failure on my 29er sentinel-tesla combo after just a few miles but it was replaced without any hassle by superstar. If it should happen again though I’ll have another wheelset built and ready and be asking 4 a refund