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IB15: White Industries starts shipping 6-bolt hubs, adds Boost mountain bike versions

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The new White Industries Boost hubs will come in Centerlock and 6-bolt options. They’re the same as the others, just wider, and only coming in silver and black. These just came off the line right before the show, so they didn’t have official weights. But, we brought our gram scale…

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Boost hub weights are 6-bolt rear (310g, standard freehub) and front (179g), and Centerlock rear (307g, XD freehub) and front (171g). All were weighed on our scale with thru axles.

They should be available by the end of November and pricing should be similar to their other hubs, maybe a bit more since there are some material changes.

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New 6-bolt XMR hubs save about 40g off their old version. Official weights are now final, front is 175g with 15 TA, rear is 298g with 12mm thru axle. Available now, seven color options. They’ve done away with green because the anodized color was too inconsistent.

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Will have the option of using their high engagement ratchet ring at no upcharge. Standard has 24 teeth, the higher one has 48 teeth to get a 7.5° rotation. It’s also retrofittable to their hubs from the past 20 years, retail is $40 for the ring and new pawls. You’ll need this special tool to remove the old ring, and they’re still sorting out whether you’ll need to send your wheels in or find a shop that has one. Or you can buy the tool for $50 and do it yourself.

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Their narrow/wide chainring is still plugging along through development, but now they’re trying to make it so a single ring works with both of their different crank spindle lengths to create the right chainline by simply flipping it over. That way you won’t need to worry about which ring goes with which crankset.

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Their chainrings aren’t new, but we hadn’t ever really seen how they work, and it’s brilliant. Pick the big ring you want, which mounts to their crank arm directly, then pick the small chainring size you want and bolt it directly to the big ring. The slots on the spider are the mounting holes, and it centers itself up automatically. There’s a shift ramp spacer between them, and they recommend a minimum of 10-tooth count differences to keep the ramps from messing with the chain’s ability to properly seat on the big ring. They say Shimano chains work best with it.

WhiteInd.com

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onion
onion
9 years ago

Not White too! Please oh please, can someone explain to me how Narrow/Wide continues to be a marketed concept? How does thickness contribute to holding the chain any better than tall teeth alone?

As long as the teeth are tall enough, the chain cannot drop unless the lateral play causes it to miss the next tooth. And if the chain is made to tightly hug the teeth between the narrow plates, the alternating wider links are not afforded much lateral freedom anyway.

Without compromising any performance in chain retention, keeping the teeth all narrow would allow for odd tooth counts, more even tooth wear, and cheaper parts that don’t require complex machining.

What am I missing?

(Nice looking disc hubs, by the way.)

K11
K11
9 years ago

White Industries. cld hubs, i love you.

Fan since ’95ish – Beautifully made in American

Michael
Michael
9 years ago

Onion – I am guessing you have never used a wide/narrow chainring.
Go ride one and you will find out what you are missing.

Tim
Tim
9 years ago

Michael- can you specify what is so special about riding with a narrow-wide chainring?

jd1072
jd1072
9 years ago

Onion and Tim – The reason narrow/wide rings are marketed is because they actually WORK. I ran SS specific (“tall”) single ring setups since the 1×9 days and was always trying to find a more elegant solution to prevent dropped chains. I often added chain catchers, + guide, + bash guard… All types of solutions.

The narrow/wide rings work unbelievably well at retaining the chain. Compared to a tall-toothed chainring, the performance benefits are massive.

Use one before you knock it.

onion
onion
9 years ago

Thanks for the input, friends… but I’m going to do the unspeakable and follow up my comment. Still, no one has given me any rational or logical explanation for the trend other than heavily biased anecdotes. You’re the exact people targeted in bad marketing.

Yes, I understand that they work. But do they really work any better than super tall teeth alone? (Do a side by side comparison between narrow/wide chainrings and other single ring offerings; the teeth on the narrow/wides are EXCEPTIONALLY taller.)

So if people are going to use their experience (instead of reasoning) as an explanation, has anyone gone out and ridden with a narrow/wide chainring, then ridden on the same tooth height profile without the wide teeth (as a control in the experiment, if you will)? Otherwise you physically can’t know the difference.

Still seems to be extra metal and machining time to me, but what do I know. And again, sorry to hijack a post with such pretty hubs.

Bill
Bill
9 years ago

Onion, it’s pretty simple. The wide teeth match up with the wider spaced part of the chain, meaning that there is less lateral movement of the chain.

When you’re bouncing down the trail, it’s not so much that the chain that’s already on the ring falls off, it’s that the chain that’s just off of the ring (link or two before it gets to and after it leaves the chainring) can move to the side, and cause the chain to come off. With the wide sections filling the wider parts of the chain, the chain will move to the side less, and be less likely to fall off.

Yes they work better than than rings with equal length teeth. And yes I have tried both. Take even for example the race face N/W rings – they have quite short teeth, similar to the ones on a big ring of a typical 2x or 3x setup. And yet the race face rings work well, the 2x and 3x rings don’t… at all (without a guide). I have also compared larger tooth rings – a DH single ring, and a wolf tooth, almost the exact same ring profile other than the n/w part, and the DH single ring had quite a few chain drops on the same route the wolftooth has had only one.

gino
gino
9 years ago

Interesting point onion. Anybody have the new shimano 1x cranks? Their rings are just tall teeth right?

gino
gino
9 years ago

BTW, LOVE my CLD hubs. White industries and DT; the only hubs I use.

Old Doc
Old Doc
9 years ago

Let’s not forget the use of any 1x drivetrain from back when Dinasaurs were building the Pyramids (W/ a Hite Rite of course) was likely not used w/ a clutch der.

So- anyone use a narrow/wide ring sans clutch? Then switch to a tall toof. (yes toof)

(I wonder if this post will be deleted as was my response to Ken Block riding a fat bike w/ a side car? Still wondering which toes I stepped on there)

MB
MB
9 years ago

Onion – Yes, I’ve done this. N/W works better. Zero dropped chains in 2+ years in all sorts of riding conditions vs dropped chains in all the same riding conditions. This is on a well made custom Ti bike etc etc so it’s not a sloppy build. If you need an odd tooth count, want better wear etc, use whatever you want and stop whining about a product you won’t be using anyways. FWIW I haven’t noticed any more wear on these systems than I used to without. I still replace after roughly the same # of miles as long as I’ve kept the drivetrain clean and switched chains as soon as I notice any stretch. I WOULD say the bigger help with dropped chains are clutch derailleurs, but for those not using derailleurs through either SS or IGF solutions and/or those that run down really gnarly terrain where the chain can still bounce off the ring despite the clutch the N/W still helps.

Swift
Swift
9 years ago

Onion, its simple. NW catches the chain with closer tolerances than just a tall tooth. Go to your bike and check out the chain…. see that there’s two plates sandwiching to other plates? thats called a link. one narrow, one wide. With a traditional even width chainring the chain only catches PART of the tooth whereas in a NW the chain actually takes advantage of that extra width. Also, in my experience, NW chainrings last LONGER than traditional CRs.
If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. Take your hate to somewhere else bruh. So much negativity is getting me in a bad mood…. ima go ride my 650b+ now…. WITH A NW CR! 😀

Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
9 years ago

Don’t read the comments.

Darryl
Darryl
9 years ago

Don’t know about narrow wide lasting longer than traditional rings.
Seems in these parts that a narrow wide chainring will not last a single chain.
Thank god for SRAM’s new steel version.

Tim
Tim
9 years ago

@jd- I am not saying narrow-wides don’t work; I have never tried one, and am not trying to be a downer. But just working is not a very high bar. I think what Onion is trying to say is that, while narrow-wides work, rings which rely only on very tall teeth might be even better. Thing is, a decent number of people have ridden narrow-wides, a small number have ridden rings with tall teeth, but I presume very few have tested both for extended periods of times. So I think his question is valid. I have heard of people wearing out narrow-wides quickly in wet and muddy conditions. But if you’re riding narrow-wides and like them, good for you. They MIGHT not be for everyone, and there MIGHT be a better solution. Just throwing out some questions, not trying to be ‘that guy’.

Tom
Tom
9 years ago

Those hubs look stunning, and made right here! Not to be Negative Norman, but have they solved the cracking problem with the spoke flanges? My last 3 front road hubs had pieces crack off them, and I sadly moved on.

Tim
Tim
9 years ago

Tom- there’s nothing negative about reporting product failures. It’s the failed products themselves (or something that was done to them) that was negative. Thanks for the data points.

sss
sss
9 years ago

Are the hubs cold forged or are they just CNC machined?

sss
sss
9 years ago

Are the freehub body’s steel or are they soft aluminium?

Feen
Feen
9 years ago

Do they work with 29er wheels??

God
God
9 years ago

It’s much more the clutched rear mech than it is the chainrings preventing chain loss.

BluesDawg
BluesDawg
9 years ago

Glad I got my green WI hubs when I did!

Dave
8 years ago

Free hubs are Ti

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