Can you judge hub quality by how long the wheel spins freely?

[s5s]

To start with, I'll admit "Hub quality" is a bit ambiguous and everyone will have different criteria of what "quality" means in hubs.

However, I noticed on 2 of my bikes that the front wheel spins very differently after being given a slight push. Both bikes were on their "backs" with saddle and handlebars on the ground and both have 700c wheels and similar tyres with inner tubes. The first bike is fixed gear with factory dawes sealed cartridge bearings and the other one is a shimano tiagra 4800 with quickrelease cone bearings. The fixie doesn't have quick release.

A short push on the front wheel on the fixie will make it spin for 1 minutes whereas the other bike will spin for 10 seconds or so. I thought the quckrelease was pushing too much on the hub so I undid it but this changed nothing.

I'm not sure if this difference has any noticeable impact while cycling? If the answer is yes, I am also wondering, if I had different hubs (buy new wheels which come with a new hub), is this likely to change my experience? Is this due to sealed vs cone bearings?

[freeflow]

Sounds like the Tiagra is worth investigating. You should be getting more than 10 seconds. One test for excessive drag is to watch the wheel as it stops spinning. It should oscillate back and forth two or three times as the heaviest section of the wheel settles to the bottom.

Bye the way, there is no Tiagra 4800 on the Shimano web site.

[nosmarbaj]

It depends what you mean by "slight push", but 10s sounds rather a short time for a (non-dynamo) front hub to spin. Tiagra hubs are decent quality generally. Does it spin smoothly or roughly?

If it's smooth then the cones may be too tight which is common on Shimano hubs as supplied new, and will damage the bearing balls and potentially the cups and cones too. But if that's the problem you'd expect it to improve when you undo the q/r.

If it's rough, you could try servicing the bearings and replacing the balls, though if the cup or cone surfaces are damaged that won't help much.

There's lots of online advice on servicing hubs, or ask your lbs.

[pete75]

Depends what you mean by quality. All else being equal a well sealed hub will not spin for as long as an unsealed hub. The smoothest, most free spinning hubs I've ever had are this type of Campag Record hub. Very high quality bearings and if any bicycle component can be so described, objects of beauty.

[reohn2]

I have XT M756 disc hubs on two bikes,when hung up for maintenance if I spin the front wheel in either bike they spin for minutes rather than seconds.
I have Deore hubs on another bike and though not as smooth as the XT's again the front will go for at least a couple of minutes.

A good test for smoothness is to hold the wheel by the axle and spin it,you'll feel the roughness through your fingers.If the wheel 'cogs' ie; it's notchy when stopping its a sign of bearing too tight,pitted cones,or lack of grease.
A 10 second spin ain't good IMHO.

[Brucey]

Spinning wheels is an interesting test but it is also a potentially misleading one. If the tyre + rim weight are heavier in one wheel than another then you can't compare two wheels. More importantly the drag in hubs falls into two categories;

1) Load -independent losses (LIL) and
2) load dependent losses (LDL)

Spinning a wheel tells you something about LIL but almost nothing about LDL.

LIL is made up of seal drag, lubricant drag, and whatever losses there are in the bearings because the bearings are preloaded.

LDL will vary with the bearing design. Under load, larger rolling elements create less drag.

A hub with tiny balls in cartridge bearings (that don't have much grease in them and ineffective seals) will often show low LIL, but under load, LDL can be greater than in a hub with larger rolling elements in it.

If the tiagra hub didn't develop a little free play with the QR loose, then the bearing adjustment was too tight. It may still be too tight with the QR loose, too.

So I'd suggest that you pay attention to the bearing adjustment in the tiagra hub; if it has been run with the wrong adjustment, the bearings could be damaged. However if the bearings and seals are in good condition, you will usually find that you can run with a thinner lube in the hub (eg a semi-fluid grease or even gear oil) without excessive leakage, and when you do that the seal drag (which is very probably what you are seeing) is reduced.

FWIW a wheel that is given a hefty shove and only spins for about 15 seconds would normally indicate a loss of about 2-5W (eg a hub generator). If you are giving the wheel a 10% push then the LIL you are seeing is probably about 0.5W or less. This isn't nothing but it isn't worth getting too worked up about either; e.g. each tyre will be consuming about 40 times that amount or more.

cheers

[Vorpal]

If the shoves are roughly equivalent, 10 seconds seems like a short time. I would first take the wheel out of the bike and see if the results were the same, and if they were, I would at least disassemble, clean, and inspect the bearings. Then I would either replace bits as needed, or as Brucey suggested, try a lighter grease.

p.s. I have a Raleigh hybrid with 20+ year old hubs that have never been serviced, and they spin well. I am confident that I would get much more than 10 seconds out of good shove.

p.p.s. it's hard to know what impact this is likely to have on cycling, but if you haven't noticed it, it's probably small.

[meic]

As a much more immediate remedy have you tried a drop or squirt of oil on the rotating part of the seal on the outside?
I do this on pedals and the seals on my external bottom bracket, not because I think it will improve my road speed but because I enjoy watching them spin freely when cleaning the bike.
Also as Brucey keeps pointing out, wetting the seal lips keeps the seals functioning correctly.

By far the best rolling wheels on this "shove test" are my unsealed wheels from the seventies and eighties or even later Soras.

[Kwest]

I purchased a Garin Pantin (Tour Olympique) over 51 years ago from Eaton's department store here in St. Catharines, Ontario. I was a student then so I could not afford an expensive bike. I just needed inexpensive transportation to university.
In 1915 I took the entire bike apart, cleaned , replaced and tuned everything as needed. Recently, my wife convinced me to buy a replacement bike with a step through for easier mounting as I am now in my mid 70's.
I purchased a Felt Verza Speed 40 which listed at $979 Cdn. It seems to be of good quality, excellent parts, hydraulic disk brakes and weighing only 28 lbs.
I brought it home and spun the front wheel as a quick test. It seemed to stop much more quickly than I had expected. So, I put the Garin and the Felt beside each other seat side done. I spun both front wheels with both hands at the same speed.
The Felt stopped after 14 seconds while the 51+ year old Garin spun for 355 seconds. That's 25 times longer!
I took it back to he dealer and they adjusted the hub but that only made a minor difference.

Does any of this make sense? Or do modern hubs have much more resistance than the older ones like the Garin?

[Pebble]

I remember messing about with this years ago (wish I could remember the figures) But one way to get the wheel to spin for a long time was clean all the grease out and just use a little thin oil, and tighten the cones up less than normal (keep a little sideways play) this removal of the grease possibly doubled how long it would spin for. Then I managed to fill the tyre with water for a bit of angular momentum. Seem to remember getting it to spin for 20+ minutes may be 30 (can't quite remember)

Of course niether of these tactics would be very wise on a bike you were about to ride - esp the no grease bit.

But getting back to the original post. I would guess your cones are a little tight, I like to have them so there is a tiny bit of play

[alexnharvey]

As reohn2 says, a very helpful test is to spin the wheel with the axle held in the fingertips, or with fingertips on the axle while it is in the frame or forks. Any issues with the bearings are easily detected.

I have found that on a smooth road I have sometimes felt front wheel bearing issues through the handlebars.

[531colin]

Is the disc brake dragging on the new bike?

Does the new bike have "sealed bearings"?
"sealed" bearings are a modern thing which "sounds good"
....they are only "sealed" as in "no serviceable bits inside" ....not "keeps the crap out"
....they are usually re-purposed caged ballraces designed for high revolutions and light load while being well aligned in industrial situations
....they are not universally suitable for bike use....low revolutions, high load, mucky environment, alignment suspect.

[Brucey]

I purchased a Garin Pantin (Tour Olympique) over 51 years ago from Eaton's department store here in St. Catharines, Ontario. I was a student then so I could not afford an expensive bike. I just needed inexpensive transportation to university.
In 1915 I took the entire bike apart, cleaned , replaced and tuned everything as needed. Recently, my wife convinced me to buy a replacement bike with a step through for easier mounting as I am now in my mid 70's.
I purchased a Felt Verza Speed 40 which listed at $979 Cdn. It seems to be of good quality, excellent parts, hydraulic disk brakes and weighing only 28 lbs.
I brought it home and spun the front wheel as a quick test. It seemed to stop much more quickly than I had expected. So, I put the Garin and the Felt beside each other seat side done. I spun both front wheels with both hands at the same speed.
The Felt stopped after 14 seconds while the 51+ year old Garin spun for 355 seconds. That's 25 times longer!
I took it back to he dealer and they adjusted the hub but that only made a minor difference.

Does any of this make sense? Or do modern hubs have much more resistance than the older ones like the Garin?

A lot of newer hub designs have seals and this (or disc brake drag) can greatly increase LIL.

[NickJP]

Depends what you mean by quality. All else being equal a well sealed hub will not spin for as long as an unsealed hub.

Agree. I have a pair of wheels with Newmen hubs that use full contact seals on the bearings, and the seals cause the wheel to stop spinning more rapidly than a wheel with semi-contact seals. However, the full contact seals also do a better job of preventing contaminants from entering the bearing.

[pwa]

Hung up on a garage wall we have a cheapo MTB I rescued from a skip about ten years ago, to use as a hack bike. In truth it has never been used much. I fettled everything on it, including the bearings, and it is about as good as it can be given its starting point. The hubs spin very freely. With wheels off the ground they will spin and spin, like the best quality hubs. But they are rubbish. Zero sealing and play that cannot be adjusted away without introducing unacceptable drag. So free spinning on its own does not mean good quality. But absence of free spinning is a sign of something being wrong in an otherwise decent quality hub.

As already pointed out, seals create drag. There is a trade-off between sealing and free spinning. The good quality wheels with the the most freely spinning hubs used to be on track wheels, set up without proper seals to be used only indoors and with frequent attention. And of no use to those of us who use our bikes in sub-optimal conditions. Does anyone know if track wheels are still set up without decent seals?