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I9 Hydra Hubs


Archie H

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Awesome to see a rider taking the plunge to try one out! Let us know how it goes.

Edit: Do you have any intention of opening it and taking out the grease? It looks like I9 uses grease now instead of oil like they used to on the Torch hubs. A friend of mine has an I9 Torch Classic and his skipped every now and then until he cleaned it out.

"The pawl mechanism of our Hydra, Torch Road, and 101 hubs has a distinctive sound. It has the sound of nothing more than the highest-quality sprung pawl system. Most riders report that the noise is inaudible over the wind at higher speeds. It is loud enough to be heard, yet not so loud as to detract from the experience you are trying to enjoy. Our stock FH lubricant is Dumond Tech Pro-X Freehub Grease. For riders who enjoy a louder hub experience, simply wipe down your drive ring, apply Dumond Tech FH oil and you will notice an audible difference."

Edited by aliao
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I have been running the torch ss 120 hub since July of 2017. It's infinitely better than my hope pro 4. Not even comparable. Also twice the price. Never  skips, it popped a couple times until I cleaned it out completely the first week. After 15 months I had to swap one bearing. It rolls so fast everything else feels horrible yet engagements are night and day with kings and hopes. The multiple contact points on each pawl and the fact they aren't sharp but flat and use a2 tool steel make it better. I spent 6 months travelling Asia just riding trials with 20km commutes daily. Much better investment than many other things. 

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On 07/03/2019 at 8:02 PM, aliao said:

Awesome to see a rider taking the plunge to try one out! Let us know how it goes.

Edit: Do you have any intention of opening it and taking out the grease? It looks like I9 uses grease now instead of oil like they used to on the Torch hubs. A friend of mine has an I9 Torch Classic and his skipped every now and then until he cleaned it out.

"The pawl mechanism of our Hydra, Torch Road, and 101 hubs has a distinctive sound. It has the sound of nothing more than the highest-quality sprung pawl system. Most riders report that the noise is inaudible over the wind at higher speeds. It is loud enough to be heard, yet not so loud as to detract from the experience you are trying to enjoy. Our stock FH lubricant is Dumond Tech Pro-X Freehub Grease. For riders who enjoy a louder hub experience, simply wipe down your drive ring, apply Dumond Tech FH oil and you will notice an audible difference."

I stripped all the grease out and used tri-flow as I use in all my kings :) 

 

 

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  • 1 year later...
  • 4 months later...

Another shout out to Industry 9. I'd been running a torch SS hub for over 2 years when it started skipping. I changed the pawls, but that didn't fix it so I sent it in to I9 to check the drive ring. They said the drive ring was cracked and warrantied it even though it was well out of warranty. Better yet, they sent me a new Hydra hub instead of fixing the Torch! The whole process to too long because I had to unbuild my wheel to send it in and at the beginning of the pandemic, I9 converted some of their CNC machines to make respirators and then bike sales went through the roof. So took a while, but worked out great for me.

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On 13/02/2019 at 9:48 PM, ben_travis said:

As i assume we're all looking at this from a trials perspective, obviously it's not aimed at what we do and the pressures we put through hubs compared to say, going up hill with a 32th front cog and a 46 tooth rear cog. lets assume its been well tested for use on the mtbs....but in terms of your question archie, i wouldn't wanna risk riding trials on this with 1 pawl engaging at a time. Even with flex.

 

what a difference a year and (almost a half makes)...

I’ve been running the i9 hydra hubs for a couple of months now and can say that they work just fine for trials stuff of all kinds. if you can afford them they are definitely worth it.

The noise is ridiculous, and I’d had no skips or skips as yet. And once you ride a pro 4 again afterwards you realise just how awesome the amount of engagement points are. 

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  • 3 months later...

Just to bump this again - I'm wanting one of these on the back of my new build. First of all, is the consensus that these are banging hubs? Reluctant to spend out over £400 on something that's going to die or skip under my chungusness :P

@Alex Dark and @ben_travis are you still having good luck with them? @Ali C did I see somewhere that Duncan and Danny are using them? Any idea how they're getting on with them if so? :)

Next, where can I find one in the UK? 135 bolt-in axle single speed in black. I can see shorelines are the UK distro and seem to sell to the public from what I can see, however it's not listed on their site. That said, I've shot them an email and am waiting to hear back. 

Cheeeeeerssssss m'dears

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Hey dude, 

I’ve had zero problems with mine so far. It’s been solid with no skips or slips. I’ve tried to put mine through it’s paces with decent sized gaps and TGS stuff as well as the streety stuff and it’s been really reliable. 

Can’t help on where you’ll source one from though I’m afraid.

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+1 for the Industry Nine hype train. Lockdown's meant I haven't really been able to do a huge amount on mine, but when I have been using it it's been totally solid. It's really shit going to other hubs afterwards as the engagement never feels as good, so it may be an expensive habit...

As far as I know, Danny and Duncan have been using the same hubs for a long old time now with no issues. Knowing that they were machine gunning through hubs was one of the reasons I ended up getting one.

135x10 singlespeed hubs are pretty unusual so I'd imagine they'll need to special order it in for you. I believe that I9 also do machining work for a few other MTB brands, and I seem to remember hearing they're snowed under with keeping up with that contracted work as well as fulfilling orders for their own product so it's likely you'll have a bit of a delay. When Ben and I got our hubs we'd been sent one with the wrong axle by accident, and it took a long time for them to sort things out simply because they were so busy.

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3 hours ago, ben_travis said:

I’ve had zero problems with mine so far.

 

1 hour ago, Mark W said:

+1 for the Industry Nine hype train.

Sweet, cheers for the feedback! Sounds like it should all be good, I just wanted to be sure before I dropped that kind of cash on a hub haha. It's still going to hurt, although reassuring that it won't be a complete mistake :P

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18 hours ago, onzatpro09 said:

Sweet, I think I'm sold!

Then it's just a case of whether I have the commitment to buy a matching front or cheese it and stick with the Hope... :S

I had the option to buy a front to match the rear, but I just didn't see the point. Firstly, I had a perfectly functional Pro 4 so I didn't really need it. Secondly, no front hub should ever be that price, and I don't want to make it seem like it's acceptable by buying one :P I'm generally pretty fussy about setup, things matching and so on, but they priced themselves out of it on that for me.

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3 hours ago, Mark W said:

I'm generally pretty fussy about setup, things matching and so on, but they priced themselves out of it on that for me.

That's exactly it. Over £200 for a front hub really stings, however with the build I've got in mind I feel like it needs to be done :S There is zero functional gain, but the matchy matchy factor is kinda calling which isn't good for my wallet haha

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  • 9 months later...

I was chasing down a mystery sound in the drivetrain recently when I discovered that BOTH freewheel bearings in my Hydra are toast. The odd thing is it never (noticeably) started skipping even though there was quite a bit of play in the freewheel. It's just over a year old so I've contacted I9, but haven't heard back yet. Hopefully it just needs new bearings, $20 or so. It's easy enough to take the freewheel off so I guess I should check that more often.

hydra_pop.jpg

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