How To Service Hub Bearings | More Efficiency & a Smoother Ride!

Servicing the hubs on your bike is important if your wheels feel rough when you spin them and it will not only help increase efficiency but also stop any premature wear.

Usually the problem will be caused by wear in your bearings or by the ingress of water and grime. Wheel bearings also do eventually wear out over time which will introduce play to the hub, allowing the wheel to rock side to side on its axle.

There are two types of bearings commonly seen in hubs – sealed (cartridge) bearings and non-sealed (cup and cone, or loose) bearings. Regular servicing can extend their life, although they will eventually wear out to the point that they need to be replaced.

More easy to follow maintenance videos:

More reading on How To Service Hub Bearings:

Follow BikeRadar on our social media channels:

BikeRadar is supported by Mountain Biking UK and Cycling Plus Magazine.

For more content like this see our latest subscription offer:

[TivonSanders]

Don't know why, but this video is the only one that perfectly explained to me how to adjust hub bearings. Excellent video. Thumbs up Mate! Cheers!

[clashwithmoi]

I got a bike tune up done today which included wheel bearing maintenance. My god, the bike feels like the day I bought it 6 years ago

[martonk]

With a quick release like this, you should set up a very little play outside of the bike, and check there is no play with wheels in and tight quick release. Otherwise the bearings will be too tight.

[awaedin]

superb series of bike maintenance videos, just used the spoke replacement one and it made the job easy.

[ajkauly]

The single trickiest part of procedure is glanced over quickly. The final adjustment and final locking needs 3 wrenches or two wrenches and vise. This is a very very precise adjustment and locking. Often to be done a couple times to get it just right. Waaaay too many young mechanics are doing everything else right, but Neglecting the correct locking. this leads to a great deal of hubs/axle premature wear/issues, often taking back the advantages of rebuilding the hub.

[NeutronJohn]

I was going to try to do it myself but it's more than I anticipated. I'll wait until I have the proper tools

[ajkauly]

also in a hollow axle, a very slight amount of play is ok, because the final adjustment mon the balls is your how much you clamp down with the QR!!! a perfect adjustment on the hub before install will result in a slightl tight adjustment after clamping. Though some settling could occur, making it looser, it may not occurr too!!!

[bryanb]

Great job . Thank you. FYI the background music made it hard to llisten to the whole vid.

[mariod]

Why not remove the hub bearing seal thing? Magnetic tool still good..but with seal in place how do you know if the hub inner race surface is OK and can clean all old grease and grit away?

[Durwood]

Makes it look so easy, but I know that once I attempt it myself, I'm going to find one "gotcha" after another.

[repairdrive]

Great video. I need mine serviced but this looks a little too complicated for me to tackle.

[Busta]

3:00 well, I checked cone on the drive side and there is some wear, can it be replaced, or do I have to change whole hub?

[FlorinSirbu.]

Hi, very informative video, thank you.
I'd like to service my rear hub bearings, and I was wondering if the disc rotor should be removed?

[nicholasjay]

can you replace these with equivalently sized ceramic ball bearings?

[dustsmoke]

Its really weird how the bicycle industry is still using these archaic 100+ year old cone bearings on hubs while the rest of the world has long moved on to safer and longer lasting things like sealed cartridge bearings. I just checked my hubs and the cone bearings are almost completely gone at 10 months and 650 miles. Meanwhile, I have a 54 and 51 year old motorcycle using cartridge bearings with tens of thousands of miles on them. One of them spent a few decades out in the elements and it was legitimately destroyed by kids jumping it and throwing it around in the mud about 30 years ago. I changed those bearings after 50 years when I rebuilt it but honestly they would have been good to go for 50 more years if I repacked them with grease. The other one lived in a barn but its bearings are still just fine and within spec.

[melias]

@BikeRadar my front wheel needs new bearings but not sure what size or type they are. we are going on a group MTB ride in a few days and won't have time for my front wheel bearings to be fixed, there is side to side play in the wheel, will this be fine for a few hours of trail riding (plus some jumps here and there)? Could this play cause an accident or me to stack?

[amermeleitor]

No!! The degreaser will reach the internal bearing of the freehub if you do it like the video.

[danfitz]

I got a new bike and have only used it about 8 times at local trail. centers and I noticed the rear hub started to make a grinding noise so i opened it up and the barings on the drive side were completely worn out and rusted but the other side were completely fine. anyone know what went wrong?

[mislevis]

Where I can purchase non drive side spacer and locknut ?? I can't see anything in google.

[ajkauly]

AXLE SPACING. good to take not of order of parts!. However, FIRSTLY, take note of spacing/rim position in intended bike frameset! make sure it is center/ed/able correctly In dealing w a used bike/wheel, sometimes people have gone and messed up the axle spacing, or sometimes the spacing of a REPLACEMENT wheel is different than frame intended for. MOre the case in rear wheels as front wheel fork spacing has much less variation in last 40 years especially.