Dave digs pink hubs. In this, he is not alone.White Industries' T11 hubs have been the de facto standard for our road builds for a long time. It would be fair to call us raving fans, and since their introduction we've sold more of them than any other hub. They have no significant liabilities. But first, let's do the numbers...
The geometry numbers for the T11 are a great balance of all of the relevant parameters. When thinking about these numbers, the most important question is really "can we put an outstanding set of wheels together based on these hubs?" In any hub we use, the answer is "yes," but with T11s it's an emphatic yes. We also have an enormous background with them, can strip them down and put them back together blindfolded in about .25 seconds, and have NEVER had a substantive issue with one. All of that makes us 100% comfortable recommending them to anyone in any application to which they fit. If Peter Sagan needed us to build our best set of wheels for his classics campaign next year, these would be the hubs.
The front hub has a forged and machined shell, and aluminum axle, 2 #6901 bearings, and aluminum endcaps. The bearing preload adjustment system is simple and effective. A lot of people freak out when they look at the hub and see that one end looks a little different from the other, and they think something's wrong. That's how it's supposed to be.
The rear hub has two compelling features that most hubs don't: a steel axle and a titanium cassette body. The steel axle provides a great deal of strength and stiffness at a small expense of weight. To us, this trade is well worth it. The rear bearings are kept precisely concentric and parallel, and overall wheel stiffness is enhanced. The titanium cassette body is frankly impervious to cassette spline chew, resulting in a lifetime of precise shifting and zero pain in the butt when changing cassettes. They simply don't wear.
The rear bearing adjust is also easy and effective. The adjustment instructions that WI provides on their site are complete and easy to follow. The rear hub has 3 #6902 bearings and 1 #3802 (Campy cassette bodies swap one of the 6902s for a 3802). All bearings are made by Enduro, they work great out of the box, they require very little very simple maintenance, and they are easy to replace. Again, if you must on ceramic bearings, those are easy to get.
Switching between Shimano, Campy, and XD drives is easy, requiring no re-dish. The cassette bodies being titanium, they're a bit expensive, but they're lifetime parts.
By way of critiques, there are very few. The drive side outboard bearing in the cassette body is perhaps a little more exposed to the elements than on some hubs. Update - White Industries changed their bearing seals, and these have addressed this issue nicely. White Industries has gone from having bearings that were a little bit of a liability to having bearings that are a relative strength. You can read about this here. We have seen a very few adjustment-side endcaps that were a tiny bit small and didn't provide the nice interference/slip fit that they usually do. That's really it. They're great hubs and WI is awesome to work with.
For the value provided, T11s are an outstanding value, even if they cost a little more than the standard November hubs. We have every confidence telling people that while rims may come and go, you can just relace your T11s into whatever "next" set of rims you get, and you're back rolling. And then hand them down to your kids after that.
Available colors (in approximate order of popularity per our orders) are black, red, pink, blue, purple, silver, and gold.
11 comments
Thanks for the explanation :)
Not exactly a T11 question, but for the WI CLD hubs, is it possible to convert these from QR to TA? My existing frame is QR, but I may upgrade within a year or so to a frame that has thru axles. Thanks in advance.
Bob – Very easy. You need a new axle/end cap kit (we usually have them, WI always does, they're ~$50), a 2mm hex, and 5 minutes. Conversions will be more of a topic when we get to disc hub reviews, but these things are a huge time commitment to do so it might be a while before we start posting those.
Great info. How much of the characteristics you explained here applies to the Nimbus Ti? The wheelset you built for me with those hubs have been great, and my understanding is that they're identical internally to the T11, right?
Mike T – Tahnks, and yeah the disc hubs will come next in a batch although I still have to do Industry Nine road and maybe Powertap (but probably not – you get a Powertap to have a hub with power meter and that's that). And these take a lot of effort, time and energy to get done. So they're coming.RC – A Nimbus Ti IS a T11, full stop. Every single part is interchangeable, and I mean every single part, even the leaf springs under the pawls. Everything. We loved them so much but there were a couple of things that shot that program down – as much as anything else our insistence on the color. But Mike and I still ADORE that color and I wish so badly that I'd saved more road hubs for our stashes. We saved enough disc hubs for a while. But we were even talking the other day about how much we'd like to bring them back. If we do, rest assured, they'll be the same color.