Who's eaten all the Hope hubs?

[Mrs Pingu]

This befell me today:
Oh bugger! by The Pingus, on Flickr

Pingu planted the evil seed that I could increase the purpleness of my bike still further by investing in a set of Hope hubs.

Ha, I can't get hold of a 36h Campag rear for love nor money! (Not even in another colour). Has Santa eaten them all?
And the buggers at Campag have stopped making 36h hubs as well, the gits.
So I've been forced into an emergency purchase of an Ambrosio Zenith, despite their shit reputation. Hoping that Hope will have got their dealers restocked before hell freezes over.
Grumph.

[Chris N]

Buy a purple Shimano one (chain reaction have them in stock), swap the freehub body for a Campag one. Sell the Shimano freehub body. 

[Mrs Pingu]

Is that even possible?

[Chris N]

Yep. You don't even need any tools.

[Brucey]

worth looking at velo orange hubs. They do campag freehub bodies. Flanges are larger and stronger looking than many others.

cheers

[Mrs Pingu]

Yep. You don't even need any tools.

I see the Hope video for the Pro4, not the RS4 though.

Anyhoo, hopefully the emergency wheel will be here before long and maybe a fully assembled purple Campy one will be available before too long.

That Velo Orange hub is quite pretty....

[Brucey]

also;

https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m2b0s117p3744/NOVATEC-F172SB-Rear-Hub

cheap enough, light enough, and available in 36h campag format.

Not sinfully ugly either.

BTW I don't think aluminium freehub bodies are really durable when used with most types of shimano cassettes, but they seem to last better when used with later styles of campag cassette.   With any cartridge bearing hub (especially inexpensive ones) it is worth dismantling them, removing the facing seals from each bearing pair, and using a generous dollop of semi-fluid grease on  everything. 

A very common problem is that the cartridge bearings are an overly tight fit in the hubshell. This (if not allowed for when specifying the bearing tolerances) means that the bearings can be running with an extremely high preload (way in excess of the service loads in fact). The seals are not perfect and they are very parsimonious with the grease, which is usually the wrong type anyway.

 The net result is often that the bearings soon get very slightly corroded and start to feel as rough as blazes. Quite often you pull the bearings out of the hub and they immediately feel OK, once relieved of their monster preload.  If you are suitably patient, you can grind down bearings so that they are a better fit in the hubshell; they see less preload, run smoother and last longer. I have taken off up to 30um before now, which (in bearing tolerance terms) is a country mile.

cheers

[sojournermike]

The Ambrosio Zenith is a branded Novatec F172 iirc. Not sure of the bearing spec though.

[Brucey]

not all Novatec F172SB hubs are the same;

this one is very similar to the Ambrosio branded one



and this one isn't


Spa cycles claim that the Novatec hub has Japanese made enduro bearings inside.  If so, this is a good thing, but almost irrelevant if the fit of the bearings in the hubshell is as poor as it often is.

cheers

[SpaceBadger]

If Hope is your thing (it is mine, too), try giving them a ring. They not only make great products, but you can talk to them quite easily as well and perhaps find out if there is a problem.

[Mrs Pingu]

If Hope is your thing (it is mine, too), try giving them a ring. They not only make great products, but you can talk to them quite easily as well and perhaps find out if there is a problem.

I left them a message on Bookface yesterday, if i don't get a reply to that I'll try giving them a ring. I have a purple front hub on it's way at least. Though that's not what I reallt need right now

[Brucey]

in 8s days you could get Hope hubs with a Ti freehub body (Ti-Glide?). Super-tasty.  Flanges were, however, of marginal size without enough meat outside the spoke holes.

a bit like this IIRC



cheers

[amedias]

I've still got 2 pairs of those Hope Ti-glides (silver though) going strong, one set on an MTB with Ti Shimano freehub, and one on a road bike with Alu Campag freehub, astonishingly both sets are still on their original cartridge bearings from the mid-late 90s with absolutely no bearing maintenance performed whatsoever in that time. They're great hubs but flanges breaking is their normal mode of death, if looked after they seem to survive well but if abused or subjected to too much winter gunge they seem to suffer a premature end.

I've used more recent Hope Hubs, Pro2, Pro4 and Road over the last decade or so and don't seem to have been anywhere near as lucky with bearing life, and the Alu (Shimano) freehubs are very soft and easily chewed up if you don't get the cassettes tight enough (and sometimes even when they are tight).

[Oxford_Guy]

I've currently (since last year) got a Hope RS-4 rear hub on my tourer (front is a SON dynohub), and had the previous generation (Pro 4?) on it previously. The RS4 is similar to the older hubs, though a little quieter (not much, though). I like Hope hubs very much, but since having a bad experience with a Shimano XT cassette eating heavily into the splines of a Hope aluminum Shimano freehub have always gone for a steel freehub for Shimano, which seems to fix the problem

[vorsprung]

I believe I have a Pro3 on the back of the Roubaix.  Every approx 18 months it goes to the LBS and has the bearings replaced

Last year, I decided that the "chewed" effect on the lightweight aluminium freehub body was no good and I got a steel one fitted

Bike (and hub) is 7 years old now and has done lots of miles, always been reliable

[Mrs Pingu]

Is the chewing of the hub just a Shimano thing? (I have Campag)

[Mrs Pingu]

I've ordered some purple hubs and matching QR's, natch. And while I wait for all that hopefully Andrew at Spa was building my emergency wheel today.

[Dave_C]

Are they making some special for you? Thought you said you could not find any and that they may be discontinued?

Good news about the new hubs though.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

[Mrs Pingu]

I couldn't see any hubs in stock but Hope said a dealer could order so I'm hoping Tredz will turn up with the goods in a couple of weeks.