advertisement


All purpose cycling thread 2022

My 2019 Specialized Allez - for which I only paid $900 in the sales (I think $1200 RRP) has cheap wheels, but so far they have been perfectly fine - trued the rear only once. They're a bit heavy, and the freehub rotates a lot before engaging, but that is to be expected. I suspect that the wheels may not hold up well in the wet, though. The own-brand Axis (rim) brakes are excellent - no complaints at all.
The tires were some horrible heavy specialized things - so I swapped them out.

I'm surprised that the Cannondale didn't use cartridge bearing hubs, which would be easier to seal and maintain than cup and cone bearings. (I like cup and cone, but cheap ones tend to have no sealing and don't fare well in the wet).
 
I ride a lot in the Peak District so am hard on wheels, they often don’t last long but usually a lot more than 6 weeks!
 
I ride a lot in the Peak District so am hard on wheels, they often don’t last long but usually a lot more than 6 weeks!
Why is the Peak hard on wheels? Gritty mud on rims maybe, but otherwise it's just a bike with hub bearings and they're having the same life regardless of where they are. Maybe some minor difference between hilly and flat, but that's got to be microscopic.
 
Why is the Peak hard on wheels? Gritty mud on rims maybe, but otherwise it's just a bike with hub bearings and they're having the same life regardless of where they are. Maybe some minor difference between hilly and flat, but that's got to be microscopic.
It’s hilly, as is Sheffield, so you put more strain on the wheels when climbing & obviously using brakes on rims to slow down. I also ride a lot & all year round, circa 8000 miles a year.

I reckon if you live somewhere like Lincolnshire then wheels will last a lot longer.
 
It’s hilly, as is Sheffield, so you put more strain on the wheels when climbing & obviously using brakes on rims to slow down. I also ride a lot & all year round, circa 8000 miles a year.

I reckon if you live somewhere like Lincolnshire then wheels will last a lot longer.
Kudos for 8k, top riding!
 
It’s hilly, as is Sheffield, so you put more strain on the wheels when climbing & obviously using brakes on rims to slow down. I also ride a lot & all year round, circa 8000 miles a year.

I reckon if you live somewhere like Lincolnshire then wheels will last a lot longer.
Good effort on 8k miles a year. I can believe you wear the rims out, especially if you use it a lot in the wet. I remember trashing a set of brake blocks coming down from Ventoux with zero visibility in the wet, and before some know it all says I don't know about cadence braking, yes I do. Said know it all can advise on how to descend a series of hairpin bends at 30mph with zero visibility.
My disc brake shod bikes have worn out freehubs but not bearings. Rims seem to be the death nell on rim brake bikes. Bearings on decent bikes seem to last basically for ever. As they should, let's be honest, at a few hundred rpm, a reasonably big surface area and a really minimal loading. Compare and contrast my car's wheel bearings, they aren't an awful lot bigger than bike wheels, maybe twice the size, the speed and loading is huge, and they last for about 100k miles. Same goes for a motorbike. Bicycle wheel bearings in comparison do next to nothing, trundling round at about 15-20 mph with 70-80kg on board.
 
I have two pairs of road/ gravel wheels, both seen over 10k miles, wet and dry riding, muddy use the whole shebang. Neither have had new bearings.

Rim brake rimmed wheels used to last 6 month tops.
 
I have two pairs of road/ gravel wheels, both seen over 10k miles, wet and dry riding, muddy use the whole shebang. Neither have had new bearings.

Rim brake rimmed wheels used to last 6 month tops.
6 months from a set of rims. Wow. It nearly makes me nostalgic for the steel rims of my youth that used to last for ever. Nearly. Not quite.
 
Good effort on 8k miles a year. I can believe you wear the rims out, especially if you use it a lot in the wet. I remember trashing a set of brake blocks coming down from Ventoux with zero visibility in the wet, and before some know it all says I don't know about cadence braking, yes I do. Said know it all can advise on how to descend a series of hairpin bends at 30mph with zero visibility.
My disc brake shod bikes have worn out freehubs but not bearings. Rims seem to be the death nell on rim brake bikes. Bearings on decent bikes seem to last basically for ever. As they should, let's be honest, at a few hundred rpm, a reasonably big surface area and a really minimal loading. Compare and contrast my car's wheel bearings, they aren't an awful lot bigger than bike wheels, maybe twice the size, the speed and loading is huge, and they last for about 100k miles. Same goes for a motorbike. Bicycle wheel bearings in comparison do next to nothing, trundling round at about 15-20 mph with 70-80kg on board.
My car requires less maintenance than any of my bikes. So many wearable parts & little real development in bike tech relatively speaking.
 
I have two pairs of road/ gravel wheels, both seen over 10k miles, wet and dry riding, muddy use the whole shebang. Neither have had new bearings.

Rim brake rimmed wheels used to last 6 month tops.
Certainly winter wheels don’t last more than one season.
 
I don't think I've every worn out rim brake wheels, however I have worn out a set of pads in a single (mountain bike) ride. Since then I've mostly used disc brakes in winter. My Roubaix is rim braked and has done a lot of winter miles but I've quite a few sets of wheels for it so doubt any one set has huge miles on it, plus I the sort of riding I was doing in winter isn't really that hard on brakes. I also got my Boardman for winter use and it has discs (and Di2 which is also good in dodgy weather I've found).

I've had bearings replaced on a few sets of wheels but all of them after a fair bit of mileage so can't complain. I don't generally seem all that hard on bike parts - possibly because I spread my riding over lots of bikes!
 
I had a set of the super lightweight mavic kysirium helium es wheels on my lightspeed about 15 years back, I went through two sets of rims on those in under a year. I pretty much killed one rear rim in two wet peak district rides, almost straight through the sidewall. Gotta love peak district grit stone in your brake blocks.
 
I’ve worn out rims through the years and it can creep up on you, I learned the hard way about expensive lightweight wheels that have thin-milled rims that don’t last unless you only ride in the best weather. I could have cried at the money I threw down the drain in that lesson. You have to keep an eye on rim wear and It’s the main reason I like the disc brakes on my gravel bike. But I only needed rim brakes through my years of riding generally and have tried to make good choices without going crazy.

I have a couple of pairs of Archetypes with DCR hubs that have been and still are great, Ezo bearings I think. I also have White T11 and Campag hubs that spin fabulously as they should. I’ve got Dura Ace 7850 hubs in a box from when the rims died but found no economical way of building their 16/24 awkward spoke count into something usable and no longer have Shimano 10-speed, I can’t see they will ever get used, shame because they are quality. I also have new and unused Ultegra 6800 28/28 hubs in a box I may or may not get to use one day.

I mostly ride campag these days on the road bikes and prefer it due to the 9/10/11 compatibility making life easier between bikes and swapping wheels and cassettes around when needed. And I am avoiding 12 & 13 like the plague, don’t need more complexity in the mix.
 
I was going to add to my post that the gear I have should see out my cycling days but if I was young or starting again the hubs that would interest me are ratchet rather than pawl. DT as mentioned by others and also the Mavic ones, assuming they have good mechanical integrity long term which I seem to recall when I read about them was one of the claims. They can also have a lower degree of engagement although arguably not important for most of us on the road.

For those new to that the number of teeth in the ratchet or pawl hub dictates the degree of rotation of your (chainset area and) pedal before engagement so 24 is 12 degrees, 36 is 10, 48 is 7.5 all to equal 360 degrees. The trade off is apparently reduced strength and more wear as you select higher. On the road it hasn’t mattered to me but I understand that for off road it gives more control and balance at lower and almost zero speed and almost standing still on difficult ground for those with much more ability than I had. Anyway, one of those technical developments I found fascinating. As a technical dummy I’m sure someone will correct me if I’ve only got it part right.
 
So, having tested and specced hubs, from ratchet ring teeth count, spring pressure, pawl placement, offset and a bunch of other dull stuff and having had to live with the designs and thousands of them being sold here's my two penneth.

On the road it doesn't matter, strength is what counts, 36 position is fine. Sprag hubs are nice offroad, instant uptake, no wasp noise, but for high load use they can slip and long term wear if you freewheel a lot isn't great. For watt saving in a tt bike they're the best though.

For durability 6 pawl off road in a 3 + 3 offset for faster uptake is more than enough. Any more than 48 positions and you get into durability issues.

Best hubs I've ever owned Chris King. 8 years out of the bearings, light lube of the ratchet 3 times a year and they never had any run out at the rims due to incredible bearing tolerances. My current hopes are decent, but no better than the mtb hubs I had made at Glory Hubs in Taiwan and twice the price.

Bearings, cup n cone for road, I know guys still running 80s campy hubs with 100k + on them. Cartridge bearings for off road, fag, snk or ntn. Don't get ceramic bearings they have awful run out, always.
 
Thank you, all put much better than I ever could! I have no idea how many miles are on my cup n cone hubs but subjectively my White T11 feel the smoothest and most free spinning hubs I have used.
 
Problem is that once the rims are gone the condition of the hubs is irrelevant. I am now of the opinion that light wheels are not for me, I am not fat by any means but 82kgs going up & down hills does put strain on wheels.
 
Nah, I'm heavier than that, my kysirium pro exalith lasted three years, till I went through the rims and they're as light as it gets this side of carbon.

The freehub bearings were gash though, only 6 month out of the first set.

My current dailies are mavic open sup disc rims on cxray and Glory Hubs, they've done about 20k miles. I've barely touched them, just the occasional true, and a couple of bearings over 4 years.

That's mixed road and gravel, 28mm slick or 38mm cx tyres.
 


advertisement


Back
Top