Are shimano hubs that bad?

Seams like everyone just buys hope hubs/wheels on this fourm. I have a older set myself. Priced up a custom build on merlin £150 for XT/EN521 and £258 for Pro2/EN521. Is the only reason to go for XT is that they are £100 cheaper? XT everything else seem pretty good stuff.

its not comparing like with like

shimano are cup and cone bearings, hope are cartidge bearings. hope have rebuildable freehubs shimano you have to replace the freehub.

I think hope are lighter as well and can be converted to 20 mm front easily.

my xt on alex rims were 100 quid with rotors tyres and tubes from my lbs
http://www.bikecity.biz/

I don't like my XT rear hub much. It doesn't spin very smoothly even after a thorough clean/regrease. I think one of the cones is a bit pitted though which may be affecting it. Doesn't have that lovely smooth rolling goodness that my Hope Pro 2 front hub has.

In my book, when you're talking about getting on nearly double the price for something that's functionally the same, you need to see some big benefit. I can't really see that cartridge bearing hubs are that much better to be honest. I have a mix of both on my bike.

Cartridges are easy to swap, but cup and cone is very easy to service too, if a little messier, and a bag of ball bearings costs a quid from any LBS.

Ultimately you get some bling and save maybe 30-50g over a wheelset. I'd sooner spend the saving on something useful.

Nope. I;d say across my bikes I have three shimano pairs, two hope pairs and a few others. Shimano work just fine as far as I'm concerned. In fact the only hub giving me issues at the moment is a rear hope XC, but then it is about 4 years old.

I had 3 xt hubs over 5 years and they went through alot. But then I got a hope xc that I have had for 12 years and only serviced once and still going strong!

hope break the axles-shimano are steel. only thing is the cup/cone setup but this isnt an issue with my mod;

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/grease-nipple-xt-hubs

I was originally a fan, but have now broken one xtr freehub and two deore freehubs. User serviceable bearings are great, but not if a different, non-serviceable part fails in their stead.

DT Swiss for me once I can afford it!

You mean you wouldn't pay an extra £100 for that loud clicky noise?

Free hubs are cheap and easy to replace though so I dont see a problem

Ha! XTR is NOT cheap, especially after 6 months… I think the freehubs cost about £120.

and the cost of a deore freehub is insignificant compared to the inconvenience of having it fail mid two-week riding holiday… 😉

I should mention all of these either were or would have been warrantied, but that's beside the point.

I was thinking of buying some mt65 wheels as they're a lot cheaper than equivalent hopes but by my own admission I'm not very good at maintaining cup and cone!

I went to Hope this time for the convertability, not at all bothered about cartridge bearings one way or another but the axle options are excellent. I'd have gone DT Swiss other than price. My XT hubs were completely reliable and the maintenance is pretty effortless, not to mention cheap- a pack of loose bearings and grease enough to do both wheels costs less than a single quality cartridge bearing

Hope Hoops make Hope a good option to buy, in custom builds they're not as good I reckon but the Hoops are great value.

Ha! XTR is NOT cheap, especially after 6 months… I think the freehubs cost about £120.

I'm glad that I am poor then. I only have then fail when they are old,maybe I am just lucky

Edric, I decided I was destroying freehubs so much because I spend a lot of time winching in very low gears which apparently kills freehubs. It never killed my Hope freehub though, lesson learnt!

(ps I didn't pay for the XTR freehub, nor did I pay full price for the hubs 8) )

The trick with Shimano hubs, is before riding them, pull them apart and put some grease in them, as they come with a paltry amount straight from the factory. Once you've done that, they're pretty much maintenance free for the rest of their lives.

Now you could argue that you shouldn't have to do that, but most cartridge bearings don't come with enough grease in them for UK conditions either, so TBH you could apply the same rule of thumb to Hope hubs as well.

Essentially you're looking at the extra money for a bit of fancy finishing. If that's important to you (and it's a perfectly valid POV) then buy hope, if not Shimano will do just as well

Nice to have a choice, isn't it?

I run shimano doere and xt and have not had any problems.My faves are however my DMR revolvers.

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I have 2 bikes with XT hubs and they are both fine.Maybe cup and cone maintenance is messier than whack out whack in cartridge bearings but it is a lot cheaper and no less reliable.

Fog – the issue is what happens when the bearing is fubared? Pitted cups are a pain at best and shimano has so many hubs all with incompatible parts.

I'd ratehr replace a set of bearings every few years than try to set up cups and cones every few months.

But as I said originally – its not like with like. Very different products with different strengths and weaknesses.

TandemJeremy – Member
Fog – the issue is what happens when the bearing is fubared? Pitted cups are a pain at best and shimano has so many hubs all with incompatible parts.
I'd ratehr replace a set of bearings every few years than try to set up cups and cones every few months.

TJ – rubbish on both points. Many spares are cross compatible and bearings do not have to be adjusted every few months.

My freehubs are about to die. Doesn't seem bad as I've not had to replace anything in 7 years.

Shimano coat their cups with boron, which on a hardness scale of 1-10 where 1 is talc, and 10 is diamonds. Boron comes out at 9.9 or something. Not saying they don't pit, but you need to be pretty slack with maintaining hubs to pit them.

Just because you don't like something, doesn't make it bad, TJ. Like post mount/ B mount brake mounts, it's just a different way of achieving the same thing.

my hope xc are still going, bloody things are great and they are second hand. also got some old xt still going, not as smooth and the rubber is cracking but they work fine still, my crossmax rears have had bearing changed. i think sealed bearings are the way forward but nowt wrong with shimano hubs, quite too. i personally would try find some 2nd had hope xc on 717 or something if on a budget

TandemJeremy – Member

"Fog – the issue is what happens when the bearing is fubared?"

Well, first you slap yourself in the face for your poor maintenance 😉 This is a fair cricisim of some inferior hubs, the formula OEM spec ones you find in cheaper Bontrager wheelsets frinstance, but not so much with shimano- if they're looked after at all, the cups and cones will run and run. I'm still using a set of LX hubs I bought in 1992… Not that they've been used constantly but they've still seen more miles than most mountain bike parts ever will and they're going strong.

hope pro2 hubs, 3 years on still going strong only just changed the bearings

6 years on Hope Pro II's – replaced freehub body bearings once and rear drive bearings twice and front once – My old Deore hub is going OK on my wife's bike but it doesn't get used much – Her old Deores died in 1 winter 🙁

7yrs exclusive use on my Chris King rear wheel. i.e. I only own one rear wheel. Not pairs like rich-Samuri!

Clean, rebuild wheel for £60 this week.

It'd better last another 7yrs.

Hope are better from a bearing maintainance point of view-I'd rather be replacing a sealed cartridge bearing than fiddling with cup and cone setups hence my grease nipple mod, but shimano has it with strength-namely stronger axles and freehub bodies-the Hope aluminium free hub bodies are just a plain stupid idea regarding the cassette digging in.

Worth it for the freehub bodies alone! £10 each posted… 😀

I use shimano xts / hope XCs and dt swiss 240s… like them all.

alloy freehubs on expensive hubs can be a pain re cassette digging in – but I have never broken an alloy axle on the hopes / dts.

Shimano make sense re ease of greasing up etc and dead cheap parts BUT its a ballache when the freehubs die – I much prefer the rebuild of a pawl hope system or the star drive dts…

if i was doing a mega tour i would choose shimano re 'strong' steel axle and ease of maintenance ! normal riding – hope xcs rock – newer pro 2s I would avoid.

paul

RustyNissanPrairie – that mod looks like the dogs. Might try it out on a deore first though.

RNP – where did you get the bits to do the grease nipple mod?

RNP – does this get any grease into the RHS?

TBH two of our bikes with M525s did last a fair while before needing replacements.

One now has Hope Pro 2s back and front, the other is about to get a Merlin XT hubbed xc717 (should arrive late this week) – will be interesting to see how both fair. I'll grease the XT hub before it goes on – thanks for that tip!

Didn't like the Hope "clicking" at first but now find it very useful for warning people to get out of the way! Just sounds "right" too.

IM(wenching)E, of the 2, Hope bearings have hardly any grease in them, while shimano are fine.

I only use shimano hubs (I have used and still have others) as I hate cartridge bearings.

Such a chore to replace them whereas servicing shimano bearings is actually a pleasant experience. (well until the odd bearing escapes across the floor under the bench.

User servicable freehubs would be good.

the hope ones dont need much.

I've had a set of XT on EN521s for a coupel of years and the only issue was that the rear needed a regrease and refit after working its way loose after a year which the LBS told me was standard with new XT hubs. My Hope pro2 on the other hand does make a much nicer clicky noise.

nickc – Member

………
Just because you don't like something, doesn't make it bad, TJ……………
Agreed – which i why I said

But as I said originally – its not like with like. Very different products with different strengths and weaknesses.