Picking a hub...

Its really up to your preference on looks once you get into billet hubs. Billet hubs rarely fail but however they are a critical part to your structural integrity of the bike. Many people have used the cheaper tusk hubs and never reported an issue. I myself have talon hubs (magnesium color) and they are great. HOWEVER the anodizing has faded over time and rocks have started to chip away at it. But these are very expensive hubs and high quality so I feel like over time they will all fade and all have chips. Powder-coating might hold up better but I've seen that chip too. It comes with the wear and tear of these bikes. But another thing to consider is if the hub is a stock replacement or if its made to work with certain spoke kits or spoke thicknesses. Most stock hubs need drilled out for aftermarket spokes. Another thing to consider is what bearings and wheel spacers. Talon hubs use talon wheel spacers and bearings. Other hubs use stock.

Good info. Faster hubs accept stock components. Found an old MXA review of TCR hubs and they do as well. TCR’s website is getting an overhaul, not sure what’s up with that company. KSR has the SM Pro and Haan hubs and others.

I've used the following: Haan, Talon, Kite, and SM Pro (not sure of the manufacturer on this one). The Kite is the lightest and uses stock components. Good overall hub and it has kept its color well. The bearings needed to be replaced around 80 hours on this. The Talon is the most solidly built but heaviest of the group. They use their own components and I have 120 hours on mine with zero issues. Heavy but solid. The SM Pro is decent but seems to be built the cheapest. Seems like there is more friction than the other brands. The spacers are made kind of light and they have slightly deformed over about a 1 year period. I have about 3 hours on the Haan hub. The fasteners that came with the hubs were cheap and crappy. Great coloring and the hub is pretty light. Very solid looking design but that's all I can go on so far.

Make sure that the hub that you buy uses 2 bearings on the sprocket side of the rear. This area puts a high demand on the bearing and this is a must.

BTW.....the SM Pro Platinum rims are very solid. I have never had as much as a loose spoke on these. The rest of what I have purchased had either the Excel A60 rims or the STX. I believe the bulldog spokes were on most of my wheels but can't be sure. Stay away from the spline drive nipples. They are a pain to get the wrench to seat after a couple of years of use. Once they wear out a little....it goes downhill from there. The paint comes off they start to look crappy.

I have only had Kite Hubs and had nothing but good luck with them. They are built extremely well and they look awesome. No issues with them whatsoever.

Hub weights have much less of an effect on rotational mass compared to the rim/tire. Get a set of hubs that uses OEM bearings and spacers.

What BobPA said.

BobPA wrote:

Hub weights have much less of an effect on rotational mass compared to the rim/tire. Get a set of hubs that uses OEM bearings and spacers.

Bingo, people look in the wrong areas to save weight.

Taking a hard look at Faster, seems like good bang for buck and uses stock components. I question the spokes they use because they don’t say they are stainless steel. They are excel spokes, with aluminum (not spline) nipples. Having said that Ages ago I re-laced a Honda wheel with Bulldog SS spokes and they were so beefy I had to drill the hub. So, more weight. I am interested in overall weight since going on a 250F and I can tell, Bigly, when riding with stock wheel vs. a Tusk wheel. On 450 weight nbd. I run X ring chain and Supersprox sprocket. 250, all Aluminium sprocket and regular chain.
Thoughts on Excel spokes that Faster uses?
I like DID rims, originals fine but for not a lot more can go with STX. Guessing LTX is their “original” or they don’t use that designation anymore. Website not clear.
Thanks for all the input!
BTW was there a merge of companies...something with TCR maybe? Dubya absorbed one of them I think.

The stock setup is going to be the lightest. Anything that I've ever purchased in regards to hubs, rims, spokes, has been heavier. I think the gain is overall strength and not much else. Don't be afraid to take the stock hub, have someone turn it down on a lathe (have a wheel shop do this), and anodize.

Faster USA is based in SoCal and machines their own hubs that use stock bearings. USA produced and racer owned is all I need to know. They stand behind their products and will build a wheel to your specs (a60, takasago, etc).

TCR seems to have lost their way. Not sure what they do now at all.

RCMXracing wrote:

Taking a hard look at Faster, seems like good bang for buck and uses stock components. I question the spokes they use because they don’t say they are stainless steel. They are excel spokes, with aluminum (not spline) nipples. Having said that Ages ago I re-laced a Honda wheel with Bulldog SS spokes and they were so beefy I had to drill the hub. So, more weight. I am interested in overall weight since going on a 250F and I can tell, Bigly, when riding with stock wheel vs. a Tusk wheel. On 450 weight nbd. I run X ring chain and Supersprox sprocket. 250, all Aluminium sprocket and regular chain.
Thoughts on Excel spokes that Faster uses?
I like DID rims, originals fine but for not a lot more can go with STX. Guessing LTX is their “original” or they don’t use that designation anymore. Website not clear.
Thanks for all the input!
BTW was there a merge of companies...something with TCR maybe? Dubya absorbed one of them I think.

Give FasterUSA a call, ask for Vince. That's me. We don't only use Excel spokes. The spokes you're referring to are a Carbon steel spoke with square headed STEEL nipples. This is the standard spoke kit we use on majority of our wheelsets as most don't have any issue with quality. We can also sell you the stainless spoke version with the aluminum spline nipples, or Bulldog stainless spokes with square headed aluminum nipples. The Bulldog spokes we use are the same gauge of spoke as OEM, they are not oversized. We can do whatever you'd like.

Also, I don't recommend turning down your stock hub as suggested by some people. Majority of them don't break, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. We've seen it happen multiple times, and that's why even with multiple machines in house we refuse to do it. Plus, your stock KTM rear hub is so weak to begin with, a lot of people (if they're lucky) find hairline cracks on the stock rears near the sprocket side around 30-40 hours. The unluckier bunch don't catch this in time, and have their hub (which uses a single bearing on the drive side because everybody is so worried about saving weight on the hub) completely grenade, sending them over the bars, chain through the case, you get the picture. DO NOT shave anymore weight off of those hubs. I'm actually genuinely concerned for your well-being haha. The only thing Faster changed on the KTM hubs is we switched to three bearings in the rear as opposed to two (same size as OEM still), and beefed up the aluminum on the drive side to completely eliminate any chance of anything like that ever happening.

DID has three rims. Dirtstar Originals, DID STX, DID LTX. STX and LTX are same price. STX= Strong. LTX= Light. Both are superior strength over the originals.

And finally, Dubya didn't absorb TCR. They sell Talon and Kite stuff, and they're good people to deal with.

Hey Fiendz.....what do you think of the Haan hub????

Moto520 wrote:

Hey Fiendz.....what do you think of the Haan hub????

I actually think they're excellent. Only thing I don't like is there are a lot of models that don't accept OEM bearings, seals, etc. Not all, but a few that we've come across have been different to OEM. Even on the Kite stuff, I changed out some bearings on a rear CRF Kite hub recently, and they actually had the same size bearings as a rear KTM OEM hub which are bigger than what come stock on a Honda (kind of contradicts the lightness aspect).

Obviously I'm going to be a bit biased, but I consider FasterUSA, Haan, Kite and Talon to all be within the same top tier when it comes to quality hubs.

FiendzCC wrote:

Give FasterUSA a call, ask for Vince. That's me. We don't only use Excel spokes. The spokes you're referring to are a Carbon steel spoke with square headed STEEL nipples. This is the standard spoke kit we use on majority of our wheelsets as most don't have any issue with quality. We can also sell you the stainless spoke version with the aluminum spline nipples, or Bulldog stainless spokes with square headed aluminum nipples. The Bulldog spokes we use are the same gauge of spoke as OEM, they are not oversized. We can do whatever you'd like.

Also, I don't recommend turning down your stock hub as suggested by some people. Majority of them don't break, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. We've seen it happen multiple times, and that's why even with multiple machines in house we refuse to do it. Plus, your stock KTM rear hub is so weak to begin with, a lot of people (if they're lucky) find hairline cracks on the stock rears near the sprocket side around 30-40 hours. The unluckier bunch don't catch this in time, and have their hub (which uses a single bearing on the drive side because everybody is so worried about saving weight on the hub) completely grenade, sending them over the bars, chain through the case, you get the picture. DO NOT shave anymore weight off of those hubs. I'm actually genuinely concerned for your well-being haha. The only thing Faster changed on the KTM hubs is we switched to three bearings in the rear as opposed to two (same size as OEM still), and beefed up the aluminum on the drive side to completely eliminate any chance of anything like that ever happening.

DID has three rims. Dirtstar Originals, DID STX, DID LTX. STX and LTX are same price. STX= Strong. LTX= Light. Both are superior strength over the originals.

And finally, Dubya didn't absorb TCR. They sell Talon and Kite stuff, and they're good people to deal with.

Thanks for all the information about your products, the spoke options, hubs, rims, etc. I like what I’m hearing and have a good idea of what I’m going to do.

I bought a set of faster USA hubs with stx rims last year from Collin over at faster. We talked about racing for about an hour, he gave me what he thought would work best for me, and i had it on my door step about 2 weeks later with tires mounted and everything. I can’t complain one bit. The red on the hub and nipples looks much better than any talon or Chinese hub i have seen and hasn’t faded. Also i do not use simple green or a cleaner that fades anodizing over time either.