Toyota claims that 85% of the vehicles they have sold in Canada in the last 20 years are still on the road. It’s an impressive boast amongst car manufacturers, or pretty much any consumer product, besides craft-made furniture and maybe pianos. When it comes to mountain bikes there are two products that I think could potentially boast bigger percentages: Chris King hubs and Chris King headsets.
I know dozens of riders like myself who purchased a King headset in the 90s and still have it kicking around in their commuter, that classic steel Dekerf which is basically a modern gravel grinder or, thanks to changes in headset standards, plunked into their kid’s runbike. Those house-made surgical stainless bearings just keep rolling. It’s a great idea to pop out the snap-rings and clean under the seals every once in a while, but how many folks actually do it?
The same is true of the hubs. I’m fairly committed to servicing the ones in my house every year and in decades I’ve replaced a couple of hubshell bearings* but I know folks who haven’t touched their hubs in years aside from the odd touch up of the RingDrive lube. In my experience working in a shop, when they finally come around to having those rebuilt the odds are that there won’t be a single component – bearings, drive rings, axles, etc – required.
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