spank hex hub

[Octomoule]

Hello,

 

My rear hub (hope pro 4) starts having problems. As i'm already old and don't want to die on a drop, i might change this hub and find alternative (seems common for hope hubs to have issues these last years  ...)

Industry nine is an option but very expensive.

I've seen the (quite new) Spank Hex hub, with 102 engagment points and a price tag similar to hope.  Anybody has tried it for trials? What do you think?

 

Thanks in advance.

D.

 

[AdamR28]

1 hour ago, Octomoule said:

(seems common for hope hubs to have issues these last years  ...)

Only because there are so many of them in use, IMO.

Can't comment on the Spank hub, haven't seen one in real life.

[Daan]

I have the Spank hub, though not on my trials bike but on my mountain bike. And only when it's not in single speed mode, so I've ridden it only twice so far :D. I've opened it up, and it's your typical pawl hub with a few tweaks, basically the same as the Hope, but with more teeth on the drive ring and two more pawls. With the higher teeth count on the drive ring, and hence way smaller teeth, logic dictates it's more delicate than Hope. They've sort of tried to counter that by having pawls with three teeth on them, so the engagement area is a bit higher. They say all pawls always engage (hard to check if this is actually the case when under power), while with the Hope Trials hub it's half the pawls. No idea how this all stacks up, but I reckon the problems you're having with Hope, will develop on the Spank hub too eventually.

Btw, which issues are you having? Given the freehub a good cleaning and regrease/reoil with some light weight stuff?

[Octomoule]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the replies.

I might have a go and open the hub then..maybe I can see something then. I's not very old though (2021 inspired hex).

Since the beginning it sometimes "miss" an engagment making this awful noise. But now this is happeing more and more often, so it's getting scarry... Hopefully as i just start riding again after many years i don't go too big

 

 

[javimic]

On 4/1/2022 at 1:30 PM, Octomoule said:

Hey guys,

Thanks for the replies.

I might have a go and open the hub then..maybe I can see something then. I's not very old though (2021 inspired hex).

Since the beginning it sometimes "miss" an engagment making this awful noise. But now this is happeing more and more often, so it's getting scarry... Hopefully as i just start riding again after many years i don't go too big

 

 

I would advise against riding the bike until this issue is resolved as it will only further damage the hub.
I understand you've been running the hub for a year, so some wear and tear is to be expected. It is good practice to check our hubs every 6 months or so and I would replace the pawls and springs once a year to prevent failure. This information is from the guys at Tartybikes (guaranteed!). I hope it is useful mate.

[basstrials]

I read somewhere that Yohan Triboulat suggests to be good alternative for I9 which is way expensive. Spank has good reputation,so this Hex hub would be my choise when my Hope 4 SS go to hell,just to try it out.People like him know to what they talk about. Unfortunately,I was not be able to find any review or whatever information related to this hub and trials use.Good luck.

[javimic]

On 4/6/2022 at 9:06 PM, basstrials said:

I read somewhere that Yohan Triboulat suggests to be good alternative for I9 which is way expensive. Spank has good reputation,so this Hex hub would be my choise when my Hope 4 SS go to hell,just to try it out.People like him know to what they talk about. Unfortunately,I was not be able to find any review or whatever information related to this hub and trials use.Good luck.

Yohan is running the Spank hub at the moment. And I keep an eye on his bike. 

[Mark W]

Yohan's doing a lot of shows at the moment so I'm not sure how much riding riding he'll be doing to really test that hub. Just thinking that it might be best to wait until further in the year to really draw any conclusions about more long term reliability/durability of that hub.

I've ridden a mountain bike with one of them on and it did feel good, and in terms of MTB hubs it's probably one I'd lean more towards for using as a trials hub, but in all honesty just stripping your current hub, checking out the internals, replacing any worn pawls and clearing out the grease Hope use from new (and using a light lube instead when you re-build it) would be a better way to go.

It does seem like there have been a reasonable number of Hope Pro 4 hubs dying, but as Adam alluded to that's out of a lot of hubs out there, and to an extent it's like plane crashes. You always hear about the planes that crash, but not about the millions of flights that successfully reach their destinations. Even just looking at the number of Hope hubs released into the wild on Inspired Team spec bikes every year that's a few hundred hubs alone, so with them also being used on some other bikes, people buying them aftermarket and so on there are a seriously large amount of those hubs out there in use, going on fine.

[javimic]

10 hours ago, Mark W said:

Yohan's doing a lot of shows at the moment so I'm not sure how much riding riding he'll be doing to really test that hub. Just thinking that it might be best to wait until further in the year to really draw any conclusions about more long term reliability/durability of that hub.

I've ridden a mountain bike with one of them on and it did feel good, and in terms of MTB hubs it's probably one I'd lean more towards for using as a trials hub, but in all honesty just stripping your current hub, checking out the internals, replacing any worn pawls and clearing out the grease Hope use from new (and using a light lube instead when you re-build it) would be a better way to go.

It does seem like there have been a reasonable number of Hope Pro 4 hubs dying, but as Adam alluded to that's out of a lot of hubs out there, and to an extent it's like plane crashes. You always hear about the planes that crash, but not about the millions of flights that successfully reach their destinations. Even just looking at the number of Hope hubs released into the wild on Inspired Team spec bikes every year that's a few hundred hubs alone, so with them also being used on some other bikes, people buying them aftermarket and so on there are a seriously large amount of those hubs out there in use, going on fine.

It's always healthy to face a little competition. I hope there are more options in the segment where the Hope Pro 4 SS/T is. The hub recently had an update (pawls), so we'll see if that improves its "longevity" or just reduces the number of cases we're talking about.

[Jere_h]

I have a Dartmoor Reel Pro 102 V2 hub on my MTB, which is supposed to be a rebranded Tairin, some say. The mechanism looks identical to the one in Spank Hex so probably they're all mostly the same stuff with different shells or other modifications. Actually I wanted to go with Spank as it looks more like a quality product but they were out of stock, basically Dartmoor seemed to be the only high engagement hub option available inside EU at that time for boost axle. This hub seems to be only 72poe in single speed flavour though.. As far as I know Dartmoor is mostly focused on cheaper end components, so my expectations were not that high initially.

It was incredibly silent, I almost couldn't hear my bike on descends which felt really weird. Now it has developed a pretty loud Hope ish buzz, but no mechanical issues or excessive dragging so far. I remember that on the first few rides it lightly skipped probably twice, but might be due to some heavy grease in there..

In theory those 3 small teeth in one pawl should divide the stress, but I also suspect them to start wearing down/skipping sooner than traditional pawl with deeper ratchet teeth.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Jere_h

[Mark W]

15 hours ago, javimic said:

It's always healthy to face a little competition. I hope there are more options in the segment where the Hope Pro 4 SS/T is. The hub recently had an update (pawls), so we'll see if that improves its "longevity" or just reduces the number of cases we're talking about.

Yeah, I fully agree with that That's also part of the reason I've got a Hydra on the back of my Arcade. 

I just don't think that the MTB industry is necessarily designing around the loads/use cases for trials, so a lot of 'normal' hubs won't really be up to the job. The Spank seems like a better option compared to others, but I'd let Yohan see how it goes first!

As I mentioned in the other thread, the Hope pawl situation is an interesting one as they're technically going back to the pawls they used to use in the Pro 4. I'm not sure when they changed to that other style of pawl, but it seems it wasn't a successful switch.

EDIT: Forgot to say, but I'm not a big Hope fanboy or anything - the Pro 4 has plenty of room for improvement, but it's hard to deny it's a fairly reliable setup for a lot of riders.

[AdamR28]

37 minutes ago, Mark W said:

As I mentioned in the other thread, the Hope pawl situation is an interesting one as they're technically going back to the pawls they used to use in the Pro 4. I'm not sure when they changed to that other style of pawl, but it seems it wasn't a successful switch.

Perhaps a case of mistaken identity at Hope... wouldn't be the first time stuff like this has got mixed up at their place. There's not a lot to differentiate between the two part numbers, especially to a non bike nerd...

[Mark W]

44 minutes ago, AdamR28 said:

Perhaps a case of mistaken identity at Hope... wouldn't be the first time stuff like this has got mixed up at their place. There's not a lot to differentiate between the two part numbers, especially to a non bike nerd...

True. Not sure which hub it would have been from though, unless their road hubs are a different design or something.

It almost had a hint of corner cutting (literally and metaphorically) in a way as it looks like a cheaper pawl, although I wouldn't have thought they'd have risked that.

[Sam Song]

I recommend Tairin, heard good things about them; and they actually mention trials riding on their product website