Nicely done mat. DT is one of those 'Less boutique" seeming hubs that is so class and good because of simple design and immaculate engineering. CK have always been a dream hub, until you own them and have to drop them in a shop for some love, whereas the others are far more user friendly.
Forever? I have 2 hubsets, from around 2009-2010. A lot of the parts of I need for those hubs are no longer in production (ISO Singlespeed axles and conversions, Campy Freehubs for the R45). That was the reason I bought CK in the first place. Next hubset will be WI for me, not CK.
they dont make parts for very long, from experience its 2-3 years after the upgraded part comes out. I have 2 sets of hubs (iso gen 1) from 2008-2010 and they dont have parts and wont make any, i have 3 headsets 1-1/8 straight steerer. So now all my CK parts are good for the shelf or landfill because of the ever changing bike standards and CK's lack of support with parts. a lot of us could still use the old iso hubs for road and gravel if we can get axle conversions...
It might be a bit of work, but since you have the wheels built up - it’d be mad to send them to Bicycle Rolling Resistance to put through his test rig to remove any difference from wind/etc!
Thanks for the hard work pulling this together! Perhaps a standard cup and cone hub like a dura ace as a benchmark. Be interesting to see the difference besides weight. The racers I rode with switched out to oil lubrication on race day, and the difference was pretty dramatic. We recently cleaned out the bearings on my sons skateboard and lubed with Prolink. The difference was dramatic. Think Hambini talked about the lub as being a big factor as well. Might be an interesting topic, same wheel and test with various lubs to see the difference. Thanks again!
I've been killing 2 sets of CLD hubs, bad weather, etc, and they are solid hubs. And, since I have 2 sets of them built up to different rims, when I swap from bike to bike, I have to do zero touching of the calipers, the rotors do not touch or rub, so they are consistent. That's a huge plus in this day and age of road disc.
I added DT to my Newmen stock hubs, and first there was some 0.2 0.3 mm offset with the Shimano rotors. So I ordered shims to compensate, but the time they were delivered, the offset was gone - without any change to the torque/tightening of the lock ring or anything... only 2-3 changes of wheels and rides!
A hub I have ridden for 5 years (rim brake) is the Tune. I have 240s and Chris King as well. The Tune really sit in between these two from my experience. They are actually my favorite
Buddy of mine sadly just had his MiG Skyline hub disintegrate on a decent in the alps: one of the rings the spokes are laced onto was no longer held in place and made all the spokes form one side shift around uncontrollably
I'm using HED Ardennes SL wheels on my Pinarello. Both bike and wheels are about 12 years old.The wheels perform as new. The Hubs are marked HED. Incidentally, I bought my first serious road frame from Steve Hed when he was first starting.
I just started cycling a few years ago. I bought my first road bike off of FB marketplace. Got a 5 yr old Specialized Venge Expert that had 2 sets of wheels. The second set has white industries hubs. The bike and wheels were in good shape to my untrained eyes. Buying an upper mid-spec used bike in good shape is better than a low-end new bike in my opinion. While truing my wheels, I noticed the rear hub had some damage. I looked for a replacement online. Every shop I saw was sold out. I reached out to white industries. They asked for a picture of the damage. Upon review they said that model hub was no longer made and offered me their current clp at cost. I did inform them that I was not the original owner. To me that customer focus is incredible these days. I'm a White Industries fan for life. Last summer I bought a Scott addict Gravel, and replaced the wheelset with Astral carbon wheels with WI huBs. I can coast past my friends on dowhills. Well worth the $$$.
I run White Industries over CKs for several reasons, 1. Cost and 2. They sound different to CKs which are so common for high end bikes in Singapore or anywhere that i wanted mine to stand out.
Strawhat cowboy dude wearing flannel character: "ah you had to slave making a whole video on this ay, had you? You couldn't have just told us you're a DTSwiss fanboy, ay? Don't appreciate fine American craftsmanship, ay, do you?" Jokes aside, great video as always and yeah, DTSwiss are simple and they work.
Even the cheapest but still quality hubs (Think low end cup and cone Shimano) are fast enough that you will not be able to measure a difference between them and the best of the best, that's how good a bearing system can be.
Timing is everything- if you are a cyclist that just bring your bike to lbs for maintenance then you can pick any hubs you like. But if you are a cyclist who is a diy guy then you pick the DT Swiss, excellent product and so easy to service.
I wasn't expecting there to be a difference in the speed tests. A well maintained hub is all you need to be quick. I wonder what the pros use? Mountain biking, road racing (TT Vs climbers)?
I built a new commuter bike and wanted some nice wheels, and ended up with a carbon wheel with DT Swiss 240 EXP hubs. But then my sweet long distance endurance bike was left with boring alu rims, so I bought a set of carbon wheels for that as well, with chris king R45 hubs. Expensive, but I'm going to be using this every day so why not.
Hard to imagine any advantage of 54t ratchet on road or gravel. Disdavantages are increased friction when coasting and reduced durabilty due to less surface area engaged - plus increased cost of the 'upgrade'. Noisy as heck also. My ultegra hubs are 18 and durace ace are 24 and work well. 36T should be more than adequate unless you're hucking your bike up rocky ledges.
You can keep your ratchet drive, they are essentially one pawl hubs that rely one a linear sliding mechanism. Yes, 52 teeth but if one misses because of lack of frequent servicing, dirt ingress or the like, all the teeth miss the engagement and pain will ensue. I've seen two mates break collarbones over the years due to this. ( poor weather mountain biking)
I came to love DT Swiss more and more... If they'd had colour options I would never think which hubs are right for me... Not that I'd think long about it... Especially since for me the bombproof budget friendly versions (350 currently going strong) are sufficient
That kills it for me. i and others i know alway remove rotors before packing the bike an wheels prior to flying. In my case about 5 times per year to and from events (ie 10 flights)
strangely missing are the ones i think would win the resistance test. dura ace or XTR depending on your setup. those bearings are amazing. even better would be to ride all the hubs 6 months then do the test. king hubs are made close to where i live in portland oregon. quality is above their competitors and the bearings are even made in house. however, it comes with a cost.....literally, along with being the heaviest of what is normally considered. shimano's cone and cup design in the xtr or dura ace variant specifically uses a highly polished cup and hardened bearings along with great seals those bearings are also larger what's found in a cartridge beading hub. i think the lower tier shimano hubs turn some riders off due to their so-so quality and service life but the tier1 shimano is cut from a different cloth. personally i would take xtr over any available hub on the market and i have tried many.
No one else are going this extra two miles 4 sets of wheels disassemble each hub the mechanics time alone cost on top on cost Thanks Cam and RCA your a one off Mate loved the video.
Lots of important things not covered in reviews like that - e.g. how are these going to fair when the bicycle is outside in the rain and the snow for 8-10h on a daily basis, how difficult and/or expensive will it be to repair, are they serviceable at home... you know... real life stuff for people who don't just use a bicycle for 1-2h rides in nice weather on flat smooth roads.
I really like the Extralite ratchet design on their Hyberboost 3 mountain hubs. That two pawl design looks a bit silly but I would be ok with 32 poe on a road bike. Whatever is the lowest drag, i.e., not DT 54.
kudos to you for making such an effort to control the environment and to not half ass it like most youtube comparisons. but the difference in hub performance is so minimal I don't think any outdoor test will show it i think
I agree with this. If you actually wanted to measure the difference between hubs you're going to have to build a test jig and measure the drag on a loaded hub with a force gauge.
😢DT for the win, ease of service is key. I ride my bikes, they get serviced annually. As far as removing my rotors, I fly a lot with my bikes, I like to remove the rotor to prevent them getting bent by accident.
Any way to measure free wheeling distance? I can free wheel much longer and more often on my zipp 354’s it seems than others not on those particular wheels
The fastest would only generally apply to the freewheeling drag. When actually pedaling it doesn't matter if it's a fixie or a 72 tooth engagement hub. The sound of a freehub sh1** me to tears. My own hub I would have no idea what brand it is but I have to say that I don't hear it and that's the way I like it. The "fastest" test really should be roll down test of the hubs when freewheeling. The sound of the freewheel is produced by energy loss and a good hub should spin longer. It's probably only part of a watt but that part of a watt is coming out of your sweat. To test the drag in a hub do a comparison of time that they will spin for with chain on versus chain off. Comparing a chain on rear wheel with a front wheel will show the drag quite clearly.
Typically a well adjusted cup and cone hub will have ~ half of the drag of a cartridge bearing hub (not counting ceramic). Most cup and cone hubs aren't properly adjusted and thus have problems. Adjust them well and they spin better than Chris King or DT. Given how expensive a DT, King, White brothers... hubset is i don't see the point in spending the extra money. As far as engagement points more = quicker engagement but higher drag. Some high engagement designs are heavier duty with extra pauls in the freehub body but most of them use smaller teeth to engage the pauls/smaller teeth on the ring drive. Smaller teeth are less durable than larger teeth. Higher engagement hubs are great for super techy mountain biking or trials riding but gravel, road, cx, xc mtb... is unlikely to improve performance in any meaningful way. It's also worth comparing a lower cost option such as a bitex to the blingy high budget options such as king, W.I., DT... as well as a Shimano ultegra/dura-ace for speed/drag both under power as well as coasting.
While not many hubs come even close in terms of smooth rolling, machining and reliability, Campagnolo unfortunately has chosen the path of system wheels without too many options to build a wheel with a Campa hub and a 3rd party rim: their only hubs you can buy are with the lowest spoke count of 32, and the hubs in e.g. their top end wheels are all designed for 3G spoking. Their pawl system is not quickly engaging due to the low number of ratchets, but I wonderi f more ratchets would affect durability... If only they would make standard 24-spoke hubs...
No big surprise high quality bearings should all have almost 0 friction so n that shouldn't make much of a difference. Same thing with there engage mechanism, it should be 0 friction when pedaling or you have a big problem. So the real difference is going to be maintenance. And the easier the actual maintenance the more likely that it will actually happen. Now i think i need to go grease my hubs 😅
Have seen Cam's videos for a while, brilliant production and neutrality to every brand, but those useless comparison is driving me crazy. Please don't do those experiments anymore, where with some ability in calculation and knowledge in basic engineering you can tell that the experimental error and environmental variation easily outweigh the difference between different brand. You are better at giving subjective riding experience or other stuff like difference in maintenance etc. Just don't want your time to be wasted in those comparison otherwise you can do some other useful experiment. Advices on meaningful topics: don't focus on different brands, but different product categories, like different rim depth; tubeless/tubes; Aeroframe/Climber frame; bottles behind saddle/ on the downtube; aerohelmet etc.
i've owned 3 of those 4 hubs. from bling factor i'd choose the King's but for bomb proof reliability and ease of service it's my DT Swiss 240's all day.
I just understand the loud hub sound. I would never want that my shimano is silent even my budget gravel bike posiden. Has generic hubs. I like the silent wheels. Onyx laced with berds and some cool aluminum wheels is my dream build for where I ride.
It's so hard to beat DT Swiss, especially when the star ratchets have been upgraded to 54t. Living with them long term is just so easy. I find that higher engagement hubs are super useful not only on a mountain bike, but also in crit races, when you need to jump on the pedals quickly out of corners.
Good effort but if you are comparing, it would be helpful to compare one directly after the other rather than break it up with chat. For me personally it didn't flow that well. Also the weight comparison it would have been helpful if you put the data on the screen so you can compare rather than trying to remember 8 different weights. That said I haven't watched the full video and it will probably come back to bite me on the ass and you will have text at then end 😅
Looking for the fastest hub but didn't build a set with Onyx hubs?! I genuinely don't think it matters as long as your bearings are in halfway decent shape.
Let's say that the bearings are all equal in quality, the only difference between hubs would be weight(if important to you) and seals that protect the internals from dust/dirt/water. That's the only difference. You can be a little technical about flange/durability which affects stiffness and spoke tension over time as some hubs have softer flanges. But that's another topic. Overall if you're an average rider that doesn't ride in dirt/rain any hub will do fine.
I used to own a set of DT wheels and the quality is exactly what you'd expect of a Swiss product really good, tho I sold them cause they where too heavy for what I wanted other than that brilliant quality and a really good Q/R too
The sound these modern hubs make has gotten ridiculous. It has just become a contest who can make the loudest, highest pitched sound, and it's dumb. It's like spinners on streetcars, stupid macho stuff, that's all it is. Luckily my old hubs are completely silent, letting me enjoy the surroundings instead of my bike sounding like a vibrator gone wild.
My DT240 freehub is virtually silent which is what I like about it. God knows what you are doing (or not doing) if you think they are noisy. Maybe you should try the Chris King if you really want to know what an annoying hub is.
Nice work, what about this,.. hook up a speed sensor to a trueing stand and time how long it takes for a wheel to spin down from 45kmhr to a stop, or different wheels for spoke drag, or rim brake wheel with fewer spokes vs disc with more spokes,..
Even suggesting hubs at this level could make a speed difference is kinda foolish and naive. Bearings difference and freehub drag differences will be so marginal it's silly to even question it.
