Isen workshop: adventures in batch production (or not...)

Yes, I know.

There is no rational argument for a Chris King hub.

Other than they look nice.

I have DT240 on the road bike and they already over deliver.

Sound

They're nice. They feel nice and smooth and are obviously very shiny. However. I have a friend who only uses CK hubs on all four of his bikes. They require so much fucking maintenance. He has to have so many hub services. If this is for a fit and forget bike, do not get a CK hub. If you don't care about doing a shite load of maintenance/paying for servicing, get a Hope.

CK hub

Points for:

• Shiny;
  
• Matches headset.
  
  

Points against:

• Costs a f***ing fortune;
  
• Makes a f***ing stupid noise;
  
• May require excessively frequent maintenance.
  
  

the jury's out.

I have Chris King hubs on 2 bikes, but my Isen will have Hope hubs for the reasons above - except the noise is awesome.

Just buy a hope headset instead to match your wheels?

Or 6 times the price of a Bitex centrelock rear. Spoke to DCR about them the other day, he said people ride them for 2-3 years straight without needing to service them

6 times the price of a Bitex

Or even 18 times the price of FH-M785. You don't hear a lot of people complaining about short service life or expensive maintenance on XT hubs :)

Or even 18 times the price of FH-M785.

if this was about functionality, would have got a Pinnacle Arkose.

if this was about functionality, would have got a Pinnacle Arkose

I'm all for #tartmode, but maybe not that much tart mode on a component which, on my bikes, is generally invisible under a layer of limestone dust from the gravel they used on the Jubilee river paths.

Oi nothing wrong with an arkose

fair; i've binned the idea of a CK hub now. Will likely go for another DT240.

@PhilDAS - that was a compliment to Arkose.

Not quite the same. Bitex weighs about a quarter of an XT, and also gets you centrelock, cartridge bearings and about 40 more points of engagement. Definitely things I'm happy to pay extra for (I currently own both for the record)

Bitex weighs about a quarter of an XT, and also gets you centrelock, cartridge bearings and about 40 more points of engagement.

Not true (not even half true, unless Bitex is sub-170g), not true (I linked to centerlock XT), not necessarily a good thing (cup and cone has lower contact pressure for given bearing external dimensions), not a thing worth paying for on anything other than a trials bike. But yeah, knock yourself out if you want to save 6oz by using weaker hubs :)

Shimano hubs are not unimprovable, but if they did them in a proper range of drillings and pretty colours they would put half the boutique hub manufacturers out of business overnight.

Have had Shimano freehubs fail on me twice in the past, and it's an annoyance you can't strip them down and service them yourself. Otherwise, they're good hubs.

Would take the DTs over Bitex though (have both at the moment). I thought that the Bitex would be the perfect hub; they are light, cheap, have bite guards, sealed bearings etc. But the pawls and pawl springs are tiny and after use over winter they were sticking/breaking. They are only cheap to replace though. The DT star ratchet has always been trouble free for me.

it's an annoyance you can't strip them down and service them yourself

As I said, not unimprovable, but the Shimano freehub can be treated as a consumable when you can buy a complete hub for €30 and perform a full guts transplant.

Yes, that's what I did with one of them (an old Deore hub).

Wonder why they started, and then stopped, making them like this (7800)?

Wonder why they started, and then stopped, making them like this (7800)?

7800 specifically was killed off because nobody bought into the deep splines which only worked with 7800 cassettes. They went chasing after weight weenies with an aluminium rotor but couldn't bring themselves to wing it with standard HG spline depth like all the boutique makers were doing. Within 6 months they binned the project and brought out the 7850 hubs and wheels with a Ti rotor.

Have had Shimano freehubs fail on me twice in the past, and it's an annoyance you can't strip them down and service them yourself. Otherwise, they're good hubs.

But you can, best thing about Shimano is the cup and cone system.

But you can

Well, yes, you can if you can be arsed to make copies of the factory assembly tools, but the freehub unit is always sold complete so even if you could get it apart you can't get replacements for any of the wearing parts. Compare that with most boutique hubs which, for reasons of manufacturing economy rather than design excellence, use a couple of cheap industrial cartridge bearings to spin the rotor, and insert the ratchet into the hub shell.

Yes, you're right, I remember those could only be used with certain cassettes. It's a shame they went back to the unserviceable freehubs though.

I haven't owned any Shimano hubs since some 7700s, might get some XTRs to replace my Bitex, would love to give some of the new ones a try.

Misunderstood original post, probably easier to just replace the freehub than to service it.

CK R45 hubs don't even make the nice noise like the classic hubs.

Chris is still the headset king though.

Chris is still the headset king

Only if you want pretty colours to match your hubs, which we all seem agree aren't worth having. Cane Creek are the real masters of headsets.