ColonelSanders

When one sees various wheel weights quoted, it is usually without the QR's.


So your wheelset in a comparative sense will be even lighter.


How much do your QR's weigh for front & rear, respectively?

Nessism

Thought you were getting the 13's?

phtomita

I weighted with and without QR - somehow both wheels got 2 g more this time.

No QR rear 848 g, front 682 g
With QR rear 910 g, front 740 g

phtomita

After looking the reviews and details of the hubs decided to go with the 12's.
The front hub on 13 has the left right spokes closer than 12's. Also, overall, I like more the style of the 12.
Got from eBay - it has only black pair, but asking then, they said can get a pair of gray anodized

tellyho

I have three sets of wheels with bitex hubs from BHS: road, gravel and mtb. All have been light, long-wearing (oldest set is 6 years and probably 4K miles in), and low-mainenance. So far, I have replaced one set of bearings in the oldest front wheel on my gravel bike.

I weigh 145, so that's a factor, but I would not hesitate to get another hubset from Brandon. In fact, I probably will be soon.

smashndash

Hm. I guess I’ll contribute. Ordered a RAR12 laced with CX-Rays to a Boyd Altamont rim from PWB. The Altamont rim and CX-Rays are known quantities at this point, nothing bad to say about them, except maybe that the Altamont rim doesn’t allow nipples to sit at much of an angle, so the spokes kinda bend suddenly near the rim. Not sure if that matters.

First thing I noticed was that the engagement was way faster than my OEM hub. However, the drag was also pretty bad when coasting. The transition from standing to sitting felt like it was slowing me down significantly, even though it was only about a second of coasting. It got to the point where it made me feel uncomfortable on the bike because I felt the need to constantly keep the pedals moving. Also, the freehub kept skipping exactly once if I put down power after coasting. It didn’t happen every time, but it was really frequent. Made it scary to power out of corners or stop signs.

I took out half the pawls to reduce the drag (and maybe fix the the skipping issue?) and it did both, to a certain extent. Freehub drag was more in line with what I was used to, and the skipping was a lot less frequent. Rich from PWB said that loose endcaps can cause this, and I believe him, but it didn’t solve the issue. It was intermittent enough that it would only happen once every few rides, though.

If it means anything, I’ve managed to do this to my DT swiss freehub too. I guess this phenomenon has something to do with me starting to pedal at exactly the wrong moment when coasting, which makes the star ratchet or pawls only partially engage and then kind of cam-out. However, it’s far more rare on the DTs.

This makes me think that there’s a set of exact sectors in the freehub mechanism where putting down power causes a skip. The size of these sectors and the number of them will dictate the probability that, if you randomly put down a ton of power after coasting, your freehub will partially engage and skip exactly once. Taking out one set of pawls from the bitex hub halved this probability. But I imagine the size of these sectors in the Bitex is still higher than the DT because of lower precision or sloppy tolerances.

Anyway. This is all to say that the RAR12 was almost unusable for me in stock form, but removing one set of pawls helped quite a bit. I wouldn’t say my DT350 is in another league or anything but the skipping issue does make me hesitate to recommend Bitex.

phtomita

After 2 full years and some 5 k miles on these wheels nothing to complain.
No issue with spokes and both wheels are pretty true too.
I rebuilt the bike to R7000 beginning of last year and I notice the cassette has bitten a bit the hub, but the anti-bite works good.

Probably going to get another set of RAR12/RAF12 hubs for replacing wheels on Centurion Ironman.

tellyho

Just going to add my experience. I have built multiple sets of wheels around Bitex hubs from bikehubstore (Brandon is awesome). The oldest is 5+ years, on its second set of front bearings and still going strong. Riding the next oldest on my cross bike, 24/28. Those hubs are on their second set of rims and new bearings for the front hub, still going strong. I've built two sets of the mtb hubs; rode the piss out of one set and have sold the bike, never having replaced any bearings on the hubs (didn't need to). Last mtb set is on my current full-sus steed.

I have been super happy with the hubs; honestly would not buy anything else right now as they hit the right qualityrice ratio for me.

phtomita

Just got a RAR12 28 holes and RAF12 24 holes and building with H Plus Son Archetypes and Sapim Laser spokes.