djb

that's pretty much my take on it also. Doesn't bother me to do cup and cone maintenance, but am open to trying some good cartridge bearing hubs someday.
And ya, I get that a lot of people (most I reckon) don't know or give a hoot about their hubs, so just want something that works, doesnt need work to keep in good running condition, and for most applications, can get new replacement bearings put in by a shop easily.
For a far off , really long trip, I'd stick to a really good cup and cone, as we all know that if well greased and adjusted properly, can go a hell of a long time and stay in great shape. On a super long trip, I would simply plan in some hub maintenance at some point when taking a week off somewhere.
And yes, I could see taking cone wrenches with me on a super long trip. I think I would want to find the lightest ones avail or drill the crap out of mine to lighten them up.

again though, I think the vast majority of riders dont give a hoot or want to do hub work, so whatever works.
Like you, cup and cone are a known quantity to me, having mucked around with them for well over 30 years, so keeping on top of two hubs is pretty easy. I don't think I regreased my Trolls hubs for at least 5, 6000kms and the grease was in great shape when I did after a bunch of tours--but I wasn't riding through sloppy stuff really, so good dry conditions mostly.

just recently a friend bought a used bike, and the rear hub cartridge bearing was going, I couldnt help with that, but was able to get a replacement put in at reasonable cost at a local shop. But not being to do it myself is why I personally would stick with cup and cone for a long trip, being self sufficient with it.

djb

agreed, just as with the whole reason of this topic, rim brakes as well as disc can both be pretty darn long lasting, reliable and effective. To me, the most important thing is the advantage of being mechanically implicated with your touring bike, that's always going to be advantageous and greatly help avoiding issues, or at the least, letting you be aware of things that need to be dealt with by someone else if you aren't into that.
I could live with touring with rim or disc ultimately, despite liking how my mechanical discs work.

cyccommute 

There is this mistaken idea out there that cartridge bearings are some how exotic and delicate. They really aren’t. As I stated above, many of the bearings used on bicycles are used in automotive applications. They are designed to take heavier loads and spin faster than any cyclist could ever do. I’m talking about hundreds to thousands of pounds of force and thousands of rpm. We subject them to 10s of pounds and hundreds of rpm if we are lucky. In other words, we hardly make them break a sweat.

Yes, occasionally one can go bad but, in my experience, they go bad with far less frequency than cup and cone bearings do. I’ve owned dozens of cartridge bearing hubs since I got my first set in 1984 on a Miyata Ridge Runner mountain bike. To date…nearly 40 years later…I’ve replaced 3 bearings sets. And one of those was in a hub that I didn’t wear out. Replacement was fairly simple.

On the other hand, I’ve owned lots of cups and cone hubs as well as worked on thousands more. I’ve seen lots and lots and lots of pitted cones and a few damaged cups (not nearly as many). I consider cup and cone to be far more delicate and troublesome.

I think the main reason that people fear cartridge bearing hubs is because they unfamiliar with them. Most likely, you are unfamiliar with them because they don’t need a lot of care and feeding. If you do need to work on them, it’s just an unfamiliar skill set. But they really aren’t that difficult.

There are some hubs that are better than others when it comes to taking them apart. Phil Wood FSC hubs are dead simple to work on. The bearings don’t require much to remove and replace…the front hub axle serves as the driver for the front hub and the rear hub bearings are removable by hand. They are by far the easiest to work on. Other hubs require a bit more work but you can remove and replace bearings with fairly common tools. A socket can be used to drive the bearings in and a punch (or even screwdriver) can be used to remove them in most cases.

An added benefit of the Phil Wood hub is that the drive cluster is removable by hand. You can pull off the gears and get to the spokes if you need to replace them without the need to remove the cassette. It’s a major plus in my book because I’ve replaced far more spokes than I have bearings.

phughes

Yeah, bearing races rarely get pitted as long as they are maintained with lube.

staehpj1

Yeah, not my experience at all. I always figured that you had to really neglect wheel barings pretty badly for them to get pitted. I mean like leaving them unlubed and outdoors unused. I figure that some of the bikes on college campuses that were cheap to begin with, never services, locked to a no parking sign and forgotton, just might have pitted wheel bearings.

I will say that headsets can be more problematic for bikes that take a beating on rough surfaces. I have destroyed a few of those on rigid MTBs myself (no problems with road bikes or MTBs with front suspension though). That wasn't so much pitting as just beating them to death, but I can see where they might get pitted with some delay of maintenance after getting beaten up a bit.

staehpj1

I'd say never as long as the surfaces remain lubed. So pitting is a result of a pretty gross failure in adjustment and or packing.

phughes

Correct.

Yan 

I've only had to deal with pitting on vintage bikes restorations. Some owners just don't know about maintenance. Or it's beater bikes that float around Craigslist and change owners every couple of years, nobody bothers to overhaul them because it's not worth the money. I just sold off a beater recently and didn't recover the new part costs I put into it.

staehpj1

FWIW, I find sealed bearings for hubs to be fine and own some. I just think of them as an elegant solution to a problem that wasn't really a problem. They are fine, so are cup and cone hubs IMO. It is nice to need fewer tools.

Tourist in MSN

I have only seen one badly pitted bearing. And unfortunately I became the owner of it. I was considering switching my bottom bracket in my expedition bike to cup and cone, saw a cup and cone spindle of exactly the right size in a used parts bin at a bike charity. Quite dirty but the measurements were right. Only a few bucks with a set of cups and some ball bearings.

Got home and cleaned it up, the spindle bearing surfaces were extremely pitted. Somebody got some sand into both sides and just kept riding it. It is a 73mm wide bottom bracket, so likely a mountain biker took it into some mud or something like that.

That said, I am quite used to adding grease to cup and cone bearings, if the balls are shiny I see no reason to remove for cleaning, just add more grease.

cyccommute 

Or riding them in the dusty, dirty west. Seals on modern Shimano hubs (and some of their clones) are good but in the west, it is easy to get grit infiltration. Prior to the rubber seals, pitting of cones was extremely common. Even today, I’d say about 10% of the cup and cone hubs hubs I see at my local co-op are pitted. It’s not difficult to find on in any used hub parts drawer at the 2 co-ops I’ve volunteered at. It doesn’t take me long to find one as an example during my mechanics classes.

How well they are greased made (and makes) little difference. Before rubber seals, I’d take my hubs apart about every 6 months. It seemed like a 50/50 proposition if I needed new cones.

Loose bearing bottom bracket spindle pitting is even more common…probably 25% of them.

That’s a whole other kettle of fish. Seldom did a headset last a season during the bad old days of threaded headsets and mountain bikes. Some times they didn’t last a single mountain bike ride. Road bike headsets weren’t much of a problem although they weren’t impervious. Threadless headsets solved all of those problems, however.

Doug64

In the 60s and early 70s for new wheels we cleaned the grease out of the hubs and repacked them with Simichrome polish. Used an electric drill for a short period to spin the the axle/ cones. The hubs were cleaned again, and new balls were used in the greasing and assembly. The treatment was thought to give a faster ride. It never seemed to help me very much

djb

thanks for all the comments.
think it is pretty unlikely that I will ever get Phil Wood hubs, but I get the robustness aspect, especially giving the automotive example. For me it's really more just not ever having any cartridge bearing hubs, but it makes sense to me that having some replacement bearings already in hand, lets say on a long trip, would just be the easiest way to cover yourself. Finding a shop to replace them using a bearing press must be super common.
For either types of hub bearings, with regular checking of how things are turning, you'd always have a heads up on how the bearings are turning, so unless you ignore things, it's never going to be a sudden surprise problem (again, I'm thinking of being on a trip).
Being how I am with mechanical things, I would want to know how to change out bearings on my own, or at least watch reliable source videos of how to do it, so I am at least familiar with the process--just as I learned how to do all the stuff with my disc brake system, all hands on stuff. Was handy when I did have to deal with Avid BB7s on the road.

phughes

They pitted under those conditions because they were not removed, cleaned and regreased before they pitted. In those conditions they would need to be serviced more often, but that is not a fault of the bearings, or design, it is still the fault of lack of timely maintenance for the conditions. A good example of this is a truck I used to have. I used it off road on trails for outdoor photography. I sometimes had to cross water, which would put the hubs underwater. Once home, I would have to disassemble, clean and lube the locking hubs. If I didn't, the water and dirt left behind could eventually destroy the hub locker. Nothing wrong with the design, but they need to be maintained commensurate to the conditions under which they are used.

Don't blame the bearings if they pit. That is the fault of lack of maintenance, and it they are used in bad conditions, you simply have to service them more often. One more example. WHen I race BMX, and ran loose ball bearings, I cleaned and regreased them every race, due to the conditions, and the type of lube being used. They never pitted.

djb

Phughs, re pitting, I've certainly noticed how cheap hubs vs good ones have a real difference in seals and probably tighter clearances, that help keep stuff out. I suspect too better quality steel and tolerances all help too, but in my experience the better Shimano hubs keep the grease cleaner longer, and the better materials probably help keep your cone adjustments much more precise over time.

phughes

My point was, they need to be maintained. How often is dependent upon the conditions, and the design of the component. cyccommute Was attributing pitting to the conditions the bike was used in, which is not the cause if the pitting. If the bearings are maintained properly according to the type of use it sees, then they won't pit. The key is to keep the bearings coated with lube. Once the lube is gone, or it is contaminated, pitting can occur. If you negelect them, yes, they will pit. Whether that means they have to be relubed every time you ride, yes, not practical, then they won't pit.

My post was simply a rebuttal to cyccommute's assertion that somehow loose ball bearing hubs cannot be used in some location due to the conditions. They can, and have been. If they pit under those circumstances, it is still the fault of lack of maintenance, not the bearing. And yes, some have better seals, but I come from a time when bicycle bearing had not seals. We simply maintained them regularly.

djb

agree completely. I too come from an era that when I started learning to work on hubs, some of them were really bad for letting stuff in, so when I started getting and maintaining better hubs, it was very noticeable how much better they were keeping the grease cleaner.

and of course, like with every mechanical skill I've learned, I've gotten much better at adjusting cones and have learned from mistakes setting them too tight, too loose...thats life, learning from mistakes--but does touch on how one can see the appeal for cartridge bearings, no learning curve / skillset , other than I imagine figuring out proper removal and insertion using homemade presses or whatever (again, no personal experience yet)

cyccommute 

That’s just incorrect. The pitted cones I’ve seen aren’t necessarily ungreased. In the age before better rubber seals, The grease was the only line of defense and infiltration of grit was very common. Back in those days, I rebuilt hubs quite often and still ended up with pitted cones on a regular basis.

I disagree that the problem is a maintenance one. We have newer designs that do a much better job of sealing the bearings and require far less maintenance. The example you gave of locking hubs is a good one. We now have better sealed hub mechanisms for cars (and bikes) that means we have to do less maintenance. Most modern 4 wheel drives don’t need regular tear down and rebuilding because the design is better. Most bicycle hubs are the same.

You aren’t putting in nearly the miles that you would with other kinds of bikes. Those races are short and fast and place very little demand on the hubs. BMX hubs are essentially road bike (or mountain bike) hubs that get run for a few laps of the track once in a while in rather clean conditions. Touring bike see a lot more miles and a lot more gunk. Frankly, even touring bikes are rather tame compared to commuting bikes. Those get tons of miles in bad conditions. I’d expect to see a lot of pitted hubs in that usage. That we don’t see that many is testament to the newer designs.

But, that said, I’d still pick cartridge bearing hubs over cup and cone. Less stuff to go wrong and less fiddly to get rolling smoothly.

djb

pH, why did you regrease these hubs after just a few miles? or 10 or 20?
Seems like a lot of work for what I assume was on a track, not even riding through mud or something.

phughes

The BMX bike was ONE example, and the hubs were disassembled and relubed at the end of each race day,, and sometimes each race, depending on the lube. Often we ran just Gold Lube which was just oil. Oh, and BMX back when I raced, were not clean conditions. They were dirt tracks, with either mud or dust depending on the day. We also ran rain or shine. And yes, the races were short, and they did not see the miles as my touring bikes.

I also have touring bikes, and other bikes. I am old, and come from the era of no seals. You just cannot seem to come to the understanding that the truth is that no matter what the mileage, if conditions are such that a bearing loses its lube, or that lube gets contaminated, it needs service. Whether that happens in 100 miles, or 10,000 miles is irrelevant. You also cannot seem to distill things down to facts. The fact is, when bearings lube is depleted, or is contaminated with corrosive material, they can pit, period. No one here disputes that, in fact, that is what we are saying. What we are also saying, is that if a bearing is properly maintained, then it will not pit. What you are doing is simply describing a situations wherein the bearing is subjected to conditions that deplete the lube, or contaminates it. Well done, you have described exactly what we are trying to impress upon you. When what you describe happens, you need to service the bearings before the bearing and races pit. If you wait too long, it it YOUR fault.

You can blah blah blah all day about your superiority in riding touring bikes, but it doesn't change the fact. What it does is annoy me since I too ride a touring bike, and have ridden many bikes over the past 58 years that did not have seals, and had bearing that were not necessarily the highest quality, unlike what we have today. Those bearing stay in good shape as long as they remain lubed. In fact, I have a 38 year old bike hanging in the garage with the original loose ball bearings, in good shape, with no pitting.

So stop. You are throwing all sorts of crap out that has no bearing on what I said. (See what I did there?) I made a statement regarding what bearing pit, and how to prevent it. That is it. You are missing the point. The point is, as long as a bearing has good lube on it, they will not pit. If you run them in bad conditions, as most of us who tour do, and you neglect to service the bearing when needed, and that is dependent upon use, conditions, mileage, and the type of lube used, then they will pit. So the moral of the story is, if you do not keep them lubed, they will pit, and if they pit, it is your fault.

phughes

It was simply because the lube being used on my bike was very light. I was going for very low rolling resistance, which a lot of us were doing at the time, though it probably made absolutely no difference at all in the big picture. We used straight oil, Gold Lube is what I used, and sometime we would mix it with a white lithium grease to make a very very thin grease. Usually though I ran straight oil.

The tracks then weren't like the tracks today. They were dirt tracks, sometimes muddy, and if not muddy, they were very dusty, especially on the very hot dry days. Lots of grit to get into bearings.

djb

Gotcha. Like you said, probably didn't make a difference, but back when I did some production motorcycle racing, guys would use wd40 on the chain rather than regular motorcycle chain oil (thick stuff) trying to eek out any teeny tiny reduction of resistance. The top guys would rebuild engines to exactly spec, again to eek out a horsepower or two, in a stock class where everything had to be exactly stock. Only thing we could do was change front sprocket size, which I did, but I was a dumbass no budget backmarker on an uncompetitive bike, so was just having fun with the other dumbass backmarkers......

cyccommute 

BMX tracks have always been cleaner conditions than you find out in the wild. Even with mud and dust, you aren’t putting miles and miles on a bike is similar conditions. Mountain bike rides do, of course, vary in length but are generally a lot further than a BMX competition. If you run 10 heats on a 400 m track, that 4 km or about 2.5 miles. I’ve done century series on mountain bike (25, 50, 62.5, and 100 miles) in mountain bike conditions. I’ve started 100 km rides in baking heat and clouds of dust from jeeps and ended the same ride in driving rain. I can’t stop every 2.5 miles and repack bearings.

I’ve also done mountain bike tours of around 640 km and there is just no possible way to stop 160 times to repack bearings. Stuff happens and you can’t alway stop to fix it.

I come from the same era and the vast majority of my riding is in dry, dusty conditions. You can’t seem to grasp that sometimes you just have to live with contamination or that the design needs to be better to keep the contamination out. A race can pit very quickly due to contamination and, if the contamination occurs early in the ride, there is not a whole lot you can do to correct the problem.

Better designs result in less contamination and the early designs were very poor. A poor design is not the rider’s fault.

Consider yourself lucky then. Hub manufacturers sell replacement cones because the cones wear. About the only significant wear that requires cone replacement is cone pitting. It happens. It may not have happened to you but it happens to a lot of people and is a very common problem. We don’t ride in clean conditions.

No, I didn’t miss the point. Your point isn’t valid. We don’t carry crystal balls to tell us when the ball bearings in our hubs are contaminated. We have no way of know if the grease is contaminated or not other than taking the hub apart which, in a Heisenbergian twist, result in having to clean and regrease the hub. Hubs don’t necessarily need to have lost the grease to become contaminated and, in fact, seldom get to that point if the hubs have poor seals. Again, if the cones never pit, we wouldn’t need replacement cones.

And, frankly, I gave up on futzy loose bearing hubs long ago. If the same bearing that is used in automotive applications can go 100,000 or 150,000 or 200,000 miles without service while operating at high speeds and under heavy loads, it will last several lifetimes in a bicycle application.

phughes

OMG You just cannot stop. You have a serious problem with understanding a simple point. If a bearing is lubed, it will not pit. That is what I said. I also mentioned contamination, but you seem to not be able to see that.

On cars, if you want to get into that, the bearings can pit due to electrical pitting, that though is not an issue with bikes.

You are welcome to use whatever bearing you wish, and yes, sealed bearing have a lot of advantages. Once again, I never made any comment regarding those, or that loose bearing were superior. I simply stated that if bearing were kept lubed, they would not pit. That includes relubing when the lubrication gets compromised.

Now, have a field day with this. You can go on about your mountain bike prowess for a few more posts, but of course the 38 year old bike with original bearings is a mountain bike that saw heavy dirty use. The bearings though were maintained.

Now, I bid you a fine adieu. This is very likely the last time we converse. Parting is such sweet sorrow. I have enjoyed slogging through your seemingly endless posts over the years, trying ti extract a sliver of truth, or a hidden bit of useful information from each, though it is like finding Nemo in a vast ocean of school fish. You see, despite your experience, and knowledge base, you are heavily opinionated and cannot seem to stick to facts. Your opinion counts by the way, but too often you double down on opinion when trying to pint out someone is wrong... in your opinion, when they may actually simply be stating a fact that you actually agree with in your long missives. You see, you have a difficult time moving from fact, to application. It is one thing to say loose ball bearings with no seals need to be maintained and kept lubed. It is another thing to say said bearing is the best choice for all applications. That is where you begin to beat your hgead up against the wall.

So I decided this time to match missive for missive, and tell you goodbye. Despite my feeling you have so much to offer, I only have one lifetime in which to spend on this forum, and I prefer that lifetime to be pleasant, and not waste time trying to glean something useful from your posts, and I truly believe there is much there that is useful. Sadly, I have only so much time, so I tend to skim your posts. You never can concede to being wrong, nor can you seem to find it in yourself to admit you misread something, like I did the other day when I mistakingly thought you were comparing the geometry of a LHT to the Windsor, when in fact you were comparing it to a different frame. I realized what I had done, and posted again telling you it was my mistake, not yours.

Anyway, you will be on ignore. I will most likely stop in from time to time to read some of your posts, because, as I said, you obviously have a lot of experience and a lot ot offere, I just get tired of your constant argumentative posts, and your assertion of supposed superiority. It is tiring.

I hope this post is long enough to live up to your standards.

Yan