Weight Weenies

I can add to this thread;

I used Hubsmith hubs for the first half of this year on a set of Chinese tubulars I had made up.

The front hub is still running OK; definitely cheap crap, but has not snapped, is light, and looks OK from a distance.

Rear hub was total rubbish, however. Badly machined parts, fitting together badly. Shockingly rough bearings, no finesse to the product, etc. Really just a standard low end piece of Chinese rubbish.

This was replaced with a newer carbon bodied Chinese hub (well, what appeared to be cheap aluminium with a veneer of carbon over it).

This second hub was equally as rubbish, but this time the problem was in the ratchet which slipped, and a mysterious creaking.

I have since replaced these hubs with proper high end stuff.

For those on a budget, these things 'work'. For those who want something in any way nice, I would avoid like the plague. Simply not good. They don't not work, but they are really crappy and depressingly badly made and you can feel it.

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I now have over 2000km on a set of Bitex Rar12/A713SB, and am very happy with them so far. Especially the rear (Rar12) is very impressive for the price! Excellent machining and fit. But of course the polishing (mine are silver) are not up to e.g. Tune standard, which costs 5x as much. The blue Enduro bearings still work like new. I have worked with the 245g Novatec rear before, and IMHO Bitex RAR12 is better. It could easily be sold at double the price, if it had a well-known brand name stamped on it.

To give a quieter freehub (and with less drag), I removed one of the two "teams" of 3 pawls. This does not make for a weaker freehub, only doubles the engagement angle, so it is now on par with Shimano and standard hubs. Added bonus: I have a complete set of spare pawls in reserve

I would definitely buy Bitex hubs again, but not the RAR9 rear (aka. "EDhub"), as I believe the flanges are thinner (= too thin) - and then it has slightly smaller bearing capacity as mentioned earlier in this thread.

Just one thing: ALWAYS take a new Bitex hub apart to check for small metal shavings in either freehub, or pressing against the bearings! The hubs are good as such, but apparently Bitex cut too many corners when cleaning and assembling, so many come with debris or small metal shavings hidden inside. Both my front and rear hub had this. If this is removed before they are used, it will not do any damage, but otherwise the freehub and/or bearings can be ruined very quickly..

I've had 6 EdHubs with the Farsports ceramic "upgrade." The hubs from day one did not spin smoothly. In one rear hub the bearings failed before 500 miles. I had to ride that thing home, with a lot of play, wobbling around. The rest of the hubs, after about 3000 miles each, feel like they're rolling on sand instead of bearings to varying degrees. I have no experience with the steal bearing EdHubs, but stay away from their ceramic bearings.

I need to replace all of the bearings now. What size and quantity bearings do I need for the rear EdHubs, and what size and quantity bearings do I need for the front EdHub? I searched, but I couldn't find a definitive answer.

Also, Enduro Bearing seem like the way to go, which steel Enduros should I order for the EdHubs to get the best performance?

I might try that trick of removing 1 "team" of pawls in the rear EdHub. The EdHub free hub is very loud and unpleasant sounding, and feels like it has a lot of drag when freewheeling.

Other than all of that, the EdHubs have a very high-quality and expensive look to them when you take them apart. Surprising.

Which "team" of pawls do you remove from the EdHub free hub to reduce drag?

Every other pawl.

I doubt that this will reduce drag measurably. You can replace the grease with thin oil as well, but this will make the hub louder.

Is that every other pair of pawls? Or is that one side of
Pawls (I believe there's 6 side by side sets).

Are there any side effects like slower engagement or the pawls breaking or the freewheel
Slipping from too much torque from too few pawls?

Finally, how do you remove the pawls?

Thanks for your time and info.

the edhub are really similar to BHS UL190, check here http://www.bikehubstore.com/UL190-p/ul190.htm

Personnally, I would not change the actual configuration of these pawls. They works 3 by 3, if you want to remove somes, remove a set. But with a set removed, the 3 other will work everytime, when they were working half the time before, so they will surely wear quicker. Also the engagement will be half the speed of before.

BHS also has replacement bearings. I've used the Enduro ABEC 3 and 5 steel bearings and can't tell the difference.

I would not remove any pawls after seeing what happens to the rider when the pawls break. It can be pretty ugly.

I often remove the BHS/Bitex freehubs and re-lube. Krytox is slippery and expensive. Or you can use decent moly grease. That's thicker and will make a quieter ratchet.

The bearing size is printed on the bearing seal. BHS's web site shows the bearing sizes. Their UL190 is the same as the Edhub.

Thanks for the info.

I just received a reply from "Kyle" at Farsports regarding EdHub Bearing Specifications:

Edhub bearing, front #688*4 rear #6802*4 USA enduro bearing.
6US$/pc.
Shipping cost 32US$ to USA

Thought other people might find this helpful.

You can buy them onshore without the huge shipping cost. Try ebay.

Ok thanks. BTW - does "688" sound correct for the front bearings? I was expecting them to have a 4 digit model number for the from bearings.

I've not messed with the front hub on mine but my understanding is the front EdHub is the same as a Bitex RAF10 which does indeed have 4 688 bearings.

http://www.racotec.de/Bitex-RAF-10-hub

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Yep, four 688s. The small bearings have three digit numbers. Bitex use four of them to get the load capacity up with low weight and a small profile. I've been training on those hubs for a number of years and not needed to take one apart yet.