Best hubs for a very heavy rider?

cyfa2809":26wpupa2 said:
hamster":26wpupa2 said:
Later XTs have aluminium axles and smaller bearings. They have already acquired a poor reputation in the touring world. LX / SLX keep the steel axles and larger bearings.

What year?

It's certainly 2010 onwards, IIRC it's from 2008. It's the ones with Aluminium axles. Steel axles are fine.
 
I have a mate that weighs over 450 pounds, he uses a new XT hub on the back of his bike and he's a savage rider!
So I would think your mate would be fine.
Just make sure it's the 36 hole version.
 
Sorry Highlandsflyer but M770 rear hub is useless for this guy if he takes the wheels offroad.

Take it from the guy who was sitting at the warranty desk the year they came out and try and find some M760s and he'll be just dandy - but the axles and freehub body on M770s are just too weedy.

Or as others have said, SLX.

If you have to use the XTs - check that it doesn't predate the running changes for FH body and the bolt that holds it on (IIRC if the production code starts with F then it's a 2007 production and may need some loctite on the bolt that holds the FH body on, and the FH itself may be prone to failing internally).
 
dbmtb":3c3r8fo2 said:
Sorry Highlandsflyer but M770 rear hub is useless for this guy if he takes the wheels offroad.

I guess you missed the part where I said, "there would be no problems were he not off roading it."

In reference to the OP's information that the rider in question was using his bike on road...

"He used to weigh 280lbs and the bike didn't have a problem with that. It was ridden hard (on the road) and has done around 10.000 miles without a single problem."

You won't find me giving advice very often, (and I am admittedly out of the loop with the very latest tech), but I still know what I know!

There would be absolutely no problems with those hubs riding on road at four hundred pounds.

:)
 
highlandsflyer":1zc4yptd said:
I guess you missed the part where I said, "there would be no problems were he not off roading it."

In reference to the OP's information that the rider in question was using his bike on road...

"He used to weigh 280lbs and the bike didn't have a problem with that. It was ridden hard (on the road) and has done around 10.000 miles without a single problem."

You won't find me giving advice very often, (and I am admittedly out of the loop with the very latest tech), but I still know what I know!

There would be absolutely no problems with those hubs riding on road at four hundred pounds.

:)
Indeed, the bike is only used on the road, and with this weight he can only ride it leisurely. I have yet to see him exceed 12MPH since he started riding it again.

I've swapped the balls in the Altus hubs with better ones, but the bike hasn't been ridden since I delivered it. Once it's covered 50 miles, I'll get over there to have a feel. Then I'll gradually increase the intervals as he loses weight.

I've been offered a set of Sram X-7 hubs, and those seem to be pretty strong. If the new balls also fail, I'll take the wheels apart and swap the hubs.

-----

EDIT : Tandem hubs are an option indeed. Most tandems are designed for that kind of weight.
 
As for the M770, the front is the same as many years before, no loss of bearing size.

The rear had a drop in bearing size and the freehub body became too thin.
They alerted the design of the freehub though to fix the blow up problems early on (search the web to find posts about it)
Still the rears have smaller ball bearing, of course not always a bad thing. The only headset I've had that lasted and has no problems has some of the tiniest bearings you can think off. i.e. MAvic headsets.

As the bearing faces are damaged though, it's only going to crush away at your new ball bearing and get worse. Flat spots and pitting that quickly sounds like over-tightening of the cones or too many bearings placed in the hub at the service time. (been there seen/done that)

When you can pick up front hubs of LX/Deore for around a tenner at On-One I would just go the new hub route and save the 770 for something a bit nicer.
 
For now the bike is running just fine with the original 32h rims and Altus hubs, so the amount of spokes is not an issue. They're not bending or showing signs of being stressed too much, so 36h is not really necessary. Sure, it would leave a bigger safety margin, but I know the extra cost is an issue for him, so I prefer to avoid it if possible.

As for the XT hubs I have laying around, I just took them out of the box and it seems I messed up the numbers. they're not M770 but T780 ones. :oops: My Copperhead is the one running on M770.

If the need arises, I'll simply put the XT hubs in the original rims and we'll see how that goes. He's going in for a gastric bypass soon, so he'll certainly continue to lose weight. I think it'll all work out, probably even with the original hubs.
 

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