Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
When I was building up another touring bike two years ago, I asked a mechanic that I respect what he thought of some of the various touring rear hubs out there. In my case it would use a disc. He said that for touring with a heavy load, he would only consider a steel axle hub with quarter inch ball bearings. He pretty much talked me out of the cartridge bearing hubs.
Just to be clear, I’m not questioning your decision but I question the mechanics advice. I have no idea why some people are so adamantly against cartridge bearing hubs. The bearings in a 6904 bearing are about 1/4” in diameter. They support an axle that is unthreaded. Cutting threads into a tube is a stress riser and makes the axle more prone to breaking.
I would never choose loose bearings for long term wheels because they need to be serviced regularly to remove contamination. That’s not because cartridge bearings can’t be contaminated but because it doesn’t matter if they are contaminated. You just replace them. Contamination in a loose bearing hub could lead to damage to the cups of the hub which would kill the wheel. The same can’t be said for cartridge bearing hubs.
Additionally, many of the cartridge bearings hubs can be have the freehub removed without too much difficulty. This makes spoke replacement simple.
You are much more likely to need to replace a spoke than do anything to the hub while on tour.