Best Hubs?

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flag dnyewoods12
Posted: Sep 13, 2019 at 13:08 Quote
Looking at purchasing some mountain bike hubs for my YT Jeffsy. Any thoughts on DT Swiss 350? I9? Royal? A great hub that climbs and handle some abuse on technical downhill. I ride Lake Tahoe a alot.

Thanks for any help,
flag Explodo
Posted: Sep 13, 2019 at 14:52 Quote
dnyewoods12 wrote:
Looking at purchasing some mountain bike hubs for my YT Jeffsy. Any thoughts on DT Swiss 350? I9? Royal? A great hub that climbs and handle some abuse on technical downhill. I ride Lake Tahoe a alot.

Thanks for any help,

Well, Chris King hubs are amazing. They'll take anything you can throw at them and they last forever.
flag Branmuffin
O+
Posted: Sep 13, 2019 at 19:53 Quote
Depends if you are annoyed by noisy hubs or not. Personally I like the loud hubs, I9 Hydras sound like a zipper on crack and hikers will gtfo the way when they hear you coming.
flag seanondemand
Posted: Sep 13, 2019 at 20:31 Quote
CK hubs are great, but I'm a DT Swiss man myself - DT350s with a 36t ratchet are super durable, reasonably priced, super easy to service, reasonable amount of noise, good engagement, and are common enough that parts availability is pretty good. There's a good reason why so many OE manufacturers use DT internals in their hubs. Ask industry guys what they recommend, especially for people who blow up hubs, and 9 times/10 it'll be DT.
flag Explodo
Posted: Sep 13, 2019 at 20:54 Quote
Branmuffin wrote:
Depends if you are annoyed by noisy hubs or not. Personally I like the loud hubs, I9 Hydras sound like a zipper on crack and hikers will gtfo the way when they hear you coming.

Yeah, some folks don't like noise, but I find the noise very useful. Blasting up behind hikers or other riders, you just coast a bit and they hear you....or they have headphones in and nothing you do matters anyway.

If you're pedaling, there's no noise. If the noise bothers you, keep pedaling. When I'm going downhill I'm either pedaling to go faster or going so fast that I have to concentrate and don't notice the noise.
flag gotohe11carolina
FL
Posted: Sep 14, 2019 at 10:05 Quote
Having owned a lot of premium hubs I have to say i9s are my favorite. Dt hubs are stupidly difficult to service as the drive ring has to be removed to service/change the drive side hub bearing. The problem is that it self tightens as you ride, meaning in my case needing a 3ft cheater bar and a mate to help me break it loose. Secondly engagement is a little low considering the expense of the hub.
King hubs are very easy to service but require tools to get out the bearings. They also use proprietary bearing which, admittedly will last forever if serviced, but cost a fortune to replace $45+ a bearing. The other problem is you have to buy a new axlento change between the varying standards. These run North of $150.
I9 hubs are very nice as well. Quick engagement, blingy, etc. They use standard sizes bearings and are easy to service. The biggest problem is they have a short lifespan on the freehub bearings (at least in torch and pre torch models. My understanding is that the new Hydra design lowers some of the off axis loading because of its quick engagement limiting flex by incorporating flex if that makes sense to you. My favorite thing about them is the endcap system as it allows a lot of variability In hub usage for the cost of a $30 end cap. The hubs themselves do cost an awful lot, though not significantly more than Kings and about 30% more than dt hubs.
I've never had onyx or hopes but will try hopes in the future. Lots of fans of each of these brands.
flag Sayshell
O+
Posted: Sep 14, 2019 at 18:48 Quote
I would say hope pro 2 evos. They are getting pretty cheap now used, because of the pro 4, and are really strong. They are also extremely easy to maintain and virtually never require maintenance. You don't need any special tools to change the bearings or any parts on it, and they have extremely strong engagement. Only 36 points, but the 4 pawls are MASSIVE, loudest hub on earth. Only issue you might have is the aluminum freehub body is soft, and the cogs dig in, so make sure to use one of those cassettes that are all 1 piece. A 9 speed will also reduce stress on the freehub body. If you got the $$$ go for the pro 4 same thing but with infinity engagement points. (err 72 I think)
flag Explodo
Posted: Sep 15, 2019 at 13:28 Quote
gotohe11carolina wrote:
Having owned a lot of premium hubs I have to say i9s are my favorite. Dt hubs are stupidly difficult to service as the drive ring has to be removed to service/change the drive side hub bearing. The problem is that it self tightens as you ride, meaning in my case needing a 3ft cheater bar and a mate to help me break it loose. Secondly engagement is a little low considering the expense of the hub.
King hubs are very easy to service but require tools to get out the bearings. They also use proprietary bearing which, admittedly will last forever if serviced, but cost a fortune to replace $45+ a bearing. The other problem is you have to buy a new axlento change between the varying standards. These run North of $150.
I9 hubs are very nice as well. Quick engagement, blingy, etc. They use standard sizes bearings and are easy to service. The biggest problem is they have a short lifespan on the freehub bearings (at least in torch and pre torch models. My understanding is that the new Hydra design lowers some of the off axis loading because of its quick engagement limiting flex by incorporating flex if that makes sense to you. My favorite thing about them is the endcap system as it allows a lot of variability In hub usage for the cost of a $30 end cap. The hubs themselves do cost an awful lot, though not significantly more than Kings and about 30% more than dt hubs.
I've never had onyx or hopes but will try hopes in the future. Lots of fans of each of these brands.

Chris Kings are now also doing free lifetime warranty...so that's pretty sweet.
flag RunsWithScissors
Posted: Sep 16, 2019 at 8:59 Quote
seanondemand wrote:
CK hubs are great, but I'm a DT Swiss man myself - DT350s with a 36t ratchet are super durable, reasonably priced, super easy to service, reasonable amount of noise, good engagement, and are common enough that parts availability is pretty good. There's a good reason why so many OE manufacturers use DT internals in their hubs. Ask industry guys what they recommend, especially for people who blow up hubs, and 9 times/10 it'll be DT.

Second vote for DT350, for all the same reasons. There's a lot of great hubs out there, and most are prettier than the DT350, but the price to value ratio on the 350 is unbeatable in my opinion.
flag onyxss
Posted: Sep 18, 2019 at 23:47 Quote
dnyewoods12 wrote:
Looking at purchasing some mountain bike hubs for my YT Jeffsy. Any thoughts on DT Swiss 350? I9? Royal? A great hub that climbs and handle some abuse on technical downhill. I ride Lake Tahoe a alot.

Thanks for any help,
All of those are great hubs. DT 350 (around 280$ Rear hub) is probably most safe price/performance ratio bet, they are almost indestructable.
Chris Kings (around 500$ Rear hub) are mentioned - you can also throw anything at them. Mostly tons of money :-)
flag Jnichols251
Posted: Sep 19, 2019 at 3:04 Quote
I would recommend Hadley hubs.
flag Davec85
FL
Posted: Sep 22, 2019 at 1:16 Quote
Hope Pro 4 are great hubs, easy to service, sound great, come in a few different colours, have good engagement (44 Poe) and are competitively priced. Can't go wrong with them, I have then on my hardtail and full suss and they have been faultless. If you aren't bothered about weight you can get a steel freehub body which won't chew up (this takes a long time to happen on the Alloy freehub). If you want an XD driver then this isn't an issue.
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