Originally Posted by
fietsbob
I got long faithful service from the Phil Wood Freewheel hub I built my touring bike rear wheel around...
I don't doubt you got good life out of your Phil freewheel hub, for their cassette hub though, folks don't seem to have been having as good luck with Phil, including myself.
Your other point though is worth considering for sure, My partner has been running LX 9 speed hubs, we noticed a pitted cone while touring through Mexico, none of the local bike shops had the right cone, so we had to order from Amazon and wait for it to be shipped... Probably easier to source than some fancy swiss stuff though...