Weight Weenies

I had some wheels from Taiwan with Novatec hubs. After more than 30 years of messing around with good quality kit and working for an OEM, they seemed quite good. And they certainly seemed well adjusted. However, after only 300-400 miles the rear hub bearings are showing signs of roughness and notching.

Is this normal for Novatec hubs? Is it really a case of 'you get what you deserve if you buy cheap Taiwanese stuff'?

And please do not suggest that I contact the company because they do not respond to end-user enquiries. It is company policy; that is the only way I can describe their no response to queries.

Thanks folks.

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Could be a lot of things - that's more a function of the bearings inside the hub, not necessarily the hub itself. Depends on the quality of the stock bearings, and riding conditions.

Google as needed (either hub model or bearing dimensions), and pick up cartridge bearings of your choosing to replace stock ones.


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Which hubs, and did you ride in the rain or wash the bike aggressively? The light-ish Asian hubs often work well but most aren't well sealed, so any water can do a lot of damage unless you strip and service the hubs obsessively.

Valbrona wrote:However, after only 300-400 miles the rear hub bearings are showing signs of roughness and notching.
Is this normal for Novatec hubs? Is it really a case of 'you get what you deserve if you buy cheap Taiwanese stuff'?

Cannot comment on whether it is normal or not, but I had similar experiences with the Novatech D711/712SB hubs spec'd with our Light-Bicycles open mold disc brake 29er wheels. I got them for our cross bikes and the inaugural/break-in was a week long vacation of riding with 40-70 miles per day over mixed composition (mostly gravel and crushed stone) trails. The wheels worked well but on day 3, we 'enjoyed' a steady deluge from start to finish and when I was cleaning off the bikes afterwards, I noticed the same signs of roughness and notching. My solution was to replace the stock bearings with Enduro Zero Hybrid Ceramics after which, aside from finding out the hubs are not capable of being upgraded for 11-speed use, I have observed no more issues with the hubs.

Some Novatech hubs (especially the ones sold on ebay) come with very cheap and poorly sealed bearings. Other shops provide them with proper bearings.
Either way, there is not much wrong with the hubs and the bearings are easily replaced by ones of your choice.

Well, it didn't take long for a theme of poor quality bearings and bad seals to develop.

I have a Novatec rear hub which shagged up very quickly. It was generally just horrible quality from the start; badly machined part, nothing really fit together well, it just felt cheap. It worked, I suppose, but it was far from the exotics you get with Tune, CK, Hope, Extralite, etc.

odd.......mine have had many many ks' and all good. Replace the bearings with a decent set of your choice but frankly, I'm surprised.

I don't know wich model you're talking about, but here's my experience. I built a dozen wheelset with the F482SB and A291SB hubs, and I must say they all were and still are buttery smooth. Some of those wheels have more than 5000 km's on them, and some are used by the local kids's club. They get beat up pretty badly. I would recommend them to anyone. The only issue I witnessed was a very tiny lateral play in the front hub on two sets. Easy to fix.

Louis

Some hubs has MBK cheap garbage bearings wich roll very smooth - those will be good for road bikes and not in rain. For MTB must be raplaced with better (EZO, SKF...) Problem outer bearing on freehub - if you change only that will be much much better for endurance of hub

Novatec are good hubs but you must take care on them after riding in rain

LouisN wrote:The only issue I witnessed was a very tiny lateral play in the front hub on two sets. Easy to fix. Louis

I've got the same lateral play in my novatec front hub. Mind if I ask how you fixed it?

LouisN wrote:I built a dozen wheelset with the F482SB and A291SB hubs, and I must say they all were and still are buttery smooth.

I have about 3K miles on a set of wheels with those hubs and have have had no problems at all. Novatecs generally have a good reputation.

I'm not sure what the new ones are like, but I found that the older rear models with 13mm aluminium axles were a bit crap, mostly because the axles bent. I had some rhythmic roughness, replaced all the bearings, but the problem was still there. I eventually realized that it was the axle. I got some cheap bits from another generic hub with Novatech internals, replaced the axle, then it happened again a few months later. Luckily, I was able to find another cheap rear wheel (Nuevation), so I replaced the axle again and sold the wheels.

The rear also required constant adjustment.

Ltoddokc wrote:

LouisN wrote:The only issue I witnessed was a very tiny lateral play in the front hub on two sets. Easy to fix. Louis

I've got the same lateral play in my novatec front hub. Mind if I ask how you fixed it?

I just took the hub apart, including cartridges, regreased everything, and put back together, using blue loctite and lube on the end cap threads. I didn't think it would do it, but the play is almost unnoticeable now. Certainly not affecting me !! I still think it's a good, solid hub.
I noticed another thing, maybe not relevant: It happened only on the builds with elbows out radial builds...

Louis

Novatec is good and so is my experience with novatec people. They answered my email really fast. Last time I bought a pair of MTB hubs D771/D772 from their ehop and so far so good. Very happy with them. I can highly recommend it, just grab some at eshop.novatecwheels.eu

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