HOPE ball bearings

[woollypigs]

Well I have managed to knacker my HOPE rear hub ball bearings along with my cassette too.

Now I need some new 6001 2RS ball bearings if I can remember my old mechanical engineering and how to read technical drawings.

Though looking at Simply Bearings Ltd there is two widths of them, so does anyone know how wide the bearings in the HOPE are, 7mm or 8mm ? The hub have stamped on them 06-04-xc and is not the disk brake ones.

Will any old 6001 2RS do, or some better quality than others ?

Only 2100 miles plus the around 2-300 that Bomber managed to put into the hub before I got the wheels of him. Honestly I would have thought that HOPE hubs would have lasted a bit longer than 2500 miles.

Just a side note when you fit your XT cassette to your hub make sure that it is well tight. Cause it fell apart in my hands when I took it off to figure out what the weird noise/feeling I had from the rear wheel. The one and only and very thin bolt holding the whole cassette together. In them there old days there were three of these bolts. IT had come lose and each sprocket where moving around on the free wheel.

[Euan Uzami]

if no-one here does hope will, mail them info@hopetech.com
they're very good customer service.

[Sergeant Pluck]

IT had come lose and each sprocket where moving around on the free wheel

Is there a problem with the splines on the freehub? The way my Shimano cassettes (not XT) are built, it would not really matter if there was a bolt holding all the sprockets together or not as each sprocket can only fit one way on the splines and the locking ring holds it all tight onto the splines.

Seems odd that the bearings should go - I wonder if there was some kind of assembly fault.

[MSeries]

The lockring holds everything tight, some cassettes are not intended to be in one piece anyway. Maybe your freehub body it too large for the cassette and despite the lockring being tight the cassette is not being held properly.

Can't help with the bearings but when I searched for 6001 2RS I only saw one size, I did also see 160012RS though which is 7mm. Get SKF.

Finally I'd be very disappointed with only 2500miles from from a Hope hub too. What are you getting for the money ?

[PhilO]

There should only be one width of 6001 (or any bearing, in fact). The designation is defined by ISO, and if anybody is selling diferent widths then they've ground them down for a special purpose.  You want the standard 8mm width.

2500 miles does seem a little low, particularly if you're using them on-road. Mine get abused on an MTB and last significantly better than that. Are they the originals? Have you or the previous owner ever used jet wash? The way a bearing is fitted is critical to its life, and there's alot of disinformation outer there - you'd be amazed at how many people think a hammer is an appropriate tool! 

To maximise life, get the best bearings you can (preferably triple lip sealed) and fit them very carefully. A little article wot I rote can be found here.

[woollypigs]

Well I'm a big bloke and load the bicycle heavly. But 2500 miles is still a bit short. I'm pretty sure that Bomber wouldn't use a pressure washer and I don't own one and would never use one any way. Though the bearing that gave up its ghost was the inner most bearing. So water should have damaged the others first.

I wrote to HOPE this am and the confirmed within 2 minutes that it is a 8mm one and I can get them from any shop they deal with. But nothing about the short life span of the bearing.

Thanks PhilO for that it just confirmed what I learned way back then.

[Mr Larrington]

Finally I'd be very disappointed with only 2500miles from from a Hope hub too. What are you getting for the money ?

+1.  I haz a Hope XC rear hub on one of the fleet which did something of the order of 28,000 km before the bearings died.

Natch the first audax with the new bearings installed required riding half a mile with the rear hub completely submerged, while the second was PBP