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17 comments
Shimano splines are very small, designed for steel and now manufactured in alloy by aftermarket manufacturers, which just builds in problems. Campag splines are much chunkier as they were designed for alloy from the start. And that's one solution if you're running 11 speed, replace both freehub and cassette with a Campag one, they work perfectly with a Shimano or Sram 11 speed setup and you don't get the notching problem.
They have no charge they have no mass,
The earth is just a silly ball,
To them, through which they simply pass...
Or is that something else?🤔
Happens with hope hubs as well, but hope do sell a steel freehub, if you're prepared to sacrifice a little weight for something more durable.
I always thought the larger sprockets are on carriers to reduce weight/cost and not to distribute load. Otherwise why not the smaller sprockets as well?
Arguably the smaller sprockets apply less torque to the freehub, but still sufficient to damage the hub
Aluminium is not a great material for withstanding the torque that comes through the cassette and excessive damage will occur if the cassette is loose, obviously.
That said, not all cassettes are created equal. The more expensive a cassette is, the more spider arms it has. These are mechanisms that both reduce cassette weight and distribute load more evenly. Dura Ace and Ultegra cassettes have five cogs on two spiders, whereas an 11-speed 105 cassette has only three cogs on one spider, meaning that there are more single cassette splines interfacing directly with the freehub and chewing it up..... but I'd stick to Fulcrum wheels if I were you. They won't cheat you with unsuitable materials and selling it to you as a weight saving!
I always thought blocks of cogs were a sign it was cheaper, at least my sunrace claris cassette could never be accused of being expensive. But I checked an old free hub I had that I'd retired,bearings were knackered,and theres clear similar impact damage on the hub from sprocket rings.
not as bad as the OPs,but neatly spaced dings instead,benefit of the sprockets being fixed width I guess in a block,but the guiding spline was the worst impacted. Not enough to cause a problem other than a bit of loosening on rotational pickup,but I'm struggling to see how tightening a lock ring would fix that, it just makes the damage less spread out, you are still taking chunks of out of an alu hub because it's a soft metal.
......It's primarily to save weight and distribute load, but also might save cost. I can see how it might. I think we agree on monkey metal freehubs though. Soft metals are not suited to this task however well the cassette is tightened. I try to avoid alloy freehubs for this reason.....
I understand how maintenance can vastly improve bearing life, but how can maintenance prevent the sprockets from digging into the splines? I find it hard to imagine that any reasonable amount of torque on the locknut will create enough sprocket-to-sprocket friction to prevent this. You can produce at least 100 N-m torque on the sprocket when pedaling.
Better freehub bodies have at least one steel spline to prevent this. Apparently Hunt's don't.
On the other hand, I bought their Adventure Disc 650B wheelset last year, and it's still going great after more than 6700 miles, including a real winter (midwest USA.) I'm still on my first cassette, so I'm hoping not to find mine looking like that when I go to replace it.
What post-purchase maintenance do Hunt recommend? Might be worth asking the question, and check that you were informed of the maintenance schedule when purchasing.
50 Nm is a lot for a bike torque wrench, and for a spanner. I tighten my cassettes to a precise "pretty bloody tight" with a socket and tommy bar. Should I be checking every X km?
I thought 40-50Nm was pretty standard for cassettes. In lieu of a torque wrench, 50Nm is about as tight as you can comfortably get it.
I converted to ft lb as I'm more familiar with that unit for bigger torques. It's about 35-37 ft lb. 50 ft lb was car wheel nut torque last time I bothered doing mine properly, so "as tight as you can" is a good rule of thumb.
I'm still interested to know what the maintenance ought to be though. Lock rings are unlikely to loosen themselves. Is that just Hunt being a little bit reluctant to say "they wear out, sorry, they're all like that" and put the onus back onto the owner?
Or that they wear out quicker if you don't tighten them enough and Hunt have no control as to how they're fitted.
I went and asked them. I said:
"what regular maintenance is needed on a freehub body? If the drive take up is still good and there are no odd noises, do I just leave alone?"
And they said:
"Hi there, yes if that is the case then shouldn't be an issues with it"
And I agree. And while this is the price we pay for light wheels - just as some race tyres are not very durable - it was a tad disingenuous to suggest that you can maintain your way out of this.
To give Hunt their due, they are far from alone in the problem and at least you can get a replacement.
Hello Bilder,
I don't recall ever getting any maintenance recommendations, hence the cassette was put on as normal (as tight as I could get it by hand), and 7 months later it looks like that. Personally I think that it's a poor design if it can get damaged so quickly. I saw that Scribe had the same issue and designed a new freehub body with steel inserts, (I think they might have sent them out to existing owners to replace damaged ones). I know it's not the end of the world, but it's £30 I didn't want to spend, when there's cake and coffee to buy!
Their interaction with customers isn't great - I wanted to run my Hunt wheels on a frame with horizontal drop-outs. The typre of skewers they offer arent strong enough, so I had to do some off-brand swapping around - but the response from Hunt was to the effect that this was my hard cheese.
Normal wear and tear. Starting to see hubs on some wheels with a steel bite guard insert, including some of the Hunt wheels. £30 is reasonable for a freehub too
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