Hope XC TiGlide Hubs and Suspension front wheelset

Hi guys,

I have been actively selling a load of old retro gear from years gone by... and last night I was looking at my beautiful 96 GT Zaskar and its wheels.

I just wandered if anyone is interested in a set of Mavic 517, SUP rims in grey, laced with DT DB spokes to Red Hope TiGlide XC hubs. The ones with the Ti centre tubes.

I am only toying with the idea at the moment but does anyone know if these are in demand? Has anyone bought a or sold a set of these? They still look sweet and nothing will let me part with the GT but I was thinking of giving her a makeover this year.

Any views much appreciated...

I recently sold some Hope ti-glides for $225 (about 112 pounds). They were in excellent condition though. If yours are well used then they would probably go for less.

I'd offer either £75 or i'll make your cuppa's for a week.

The most important thing to check is that there are no cracks where the alloy flanges are pressed onto the titanium centres. The front are notorious for cracking here are they can be tricky to spot unless you are really looking for them.

Otherwise, nice wheels....you should have a problem selling them but price will depend on condition.

Thanks for the info, well I guess I'll hang on to them as they are mint and run perfectly. Never had a problem with them or heard of cracking before but that could be how well the wheel is built too.

I built these myself and not had any problems.

It's got nothing to do with how well the wheel is built it's to do with the design of the hubs.

Check the flanges, on the front especially, not where the spoke holes are, but where they press onto the centres. You're looking for hairline cracks running parallel to the axle. If the wheels are well used, regardless of how well they've been looked after and how minty they are, I'd be surprised if there are no cracks.........if not then you're lucky.

If anything, if they're in good condition this makes them even more desirable, 'cos so many are buggered.

By the way mate, where are you?

I'm in Oxford during the week.

I live on the Botley road. I am actually a design engineer/product designer and a trials rider so I'd say the hubs have survived pretty well.

Combo of braking force, sideloading, loose spokes or irregular spoke tension will torque and twist the hub flanges as with any hub so thats my theory behind a poorly built wheel over a well built wheel. The forces are probably more evenly distributed in a well built wheel. Hubs just don't fall apart on their own.

To back up your argument, it could also be to do with tolerance stacks between the aluminium and ti sleeve. That when compressed between the frame the pressed/bonded flange joint could fail or suffer undue stress. Which is a consequence of tolerances on limits in a design or poor design perhaps...

Oh I dunno, not got time to explain it here...!

What are you up to in the 'FORD then?

I'm doing post grad 'stuff'

Backgrounds in mechanical engineering, but now involved in construction & building.

As for the hubs, having seen how they fail, my guess would be that the cause is probably to do with stresses caused by the manufacturing and material properties. Hope themselves are open about the fact that early failure is an issue with the early Ti hubs, especially the fatso which has a much larger diameter centre section resulting in thinner alloy on the pressed on flanges. Cracks propagate from the centre of the hub back towards the flange which makes me wonder if there is a problem with tolerances and different thermal expansion characteristics between the titanium and aluminium parts?

As for build quality of the wheel, I'd agree with you except my own experience seems to contradict that. I had a fatso hub laced into a mavic 217SUP rim with alloy nipples and DT butted spokes. I'd had the wheel since 1998 and never had to touch it (not even a tweak)- still perfectly true and solid......still got three cracks in the hub though.

Cherrybomb...Trialsy is my workmate.... you know where to find him