Hub
Hub
The hub is at the heart of the wheel and Phillips, Massey and Sharp all agree that it is the one area not worth skimping on.
“Go for the best quality hub you can afford,” says Massey. All three agree a hub must be reliable, durable and easily serviceable.
Phillips recommends a hub with cartridge bearings, which sit within a race, but Massey and Sharp both vouch for Shimano hubs, which still use an easily-serviceable cup-and-cone bearing system which allows the bearings to sit loose in a ‘cup’ within the hub shell.
“The Shimano 105 is absolutely perfect,” says Sharp. “They’re well-sealed and while they’re quite heavy, they use an old-school cup-and-cone bearing system and they’ll withstand tons of mileage – 10-15,000 miles – with just a simple re-grease that anyone can do in their garage at home with a couple of spanners and a YouTube guide [or RoadCyclingUK’s step-by-step maintenance tutorial].”
Massey lists Shimano, DT Swiss, Chris King, Hope and Campagnolo as manufacturers of high-quality hubs. “Chris King hubs have a reputation for being incredibly reliable,” he says, and the premium manufacturer’s hubs are also regularly seen in the Ride workshop through winter.
“We’ve got lots of customers running Chris King hubs through winter,” says Phillips. “They’re so well machined that they will just run and run. The quality of materials is so high, that they’re corrosion-proof. If moisture gets in, the bearings are of such high quality that they’ll cope. Cheaper materials will just rot.”