Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
Front hubs, I found the XT to be trouble free when I did use them. But a front hub often has half or maybe a bit more than half as much weight on it as the rear, so front wheels usually hold up well.
Shimano has made a number of newer hubs that have Aluminum axles. Sometimes you hear of bearing failures in those hubs, the Aluminum axle is much larger than the steel axle so they used smaller bearings in those hubs. My only comment would be that you might want to avoid rear Shimano hubs with bearings that are smaller than the quarter inch ball bearings that the M756A has and for that reason also avoid the Aluminum axles. That was why I cited steel axles in my previous post.
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This is part of the reason I switched back to some old Suntour sealed cartridge bearing hubs. I was using some XT M739 hubs, and never had any problems with them, but they were “only” 32-spoke hubs, plus they were probably one of the earlier versions to use aluminum axles. They were oversized, and seemed pretty strong, but something in the back of my mind didn’t like the idea of aluminum axles. 🤔😉