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Race Face spins out Vault J-bend mountain bike hubs

Written by Cory Benson
17 Comments
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Starting back in summer 2016 Race Face started rolling out new Turbine & Next mountain bike wheelsets built around a new aluminum oversized set of Vault hubs. The high-engagement hubs have since proven to be popular & durable, and in response to rider & dealer demand, Race Face has developed a set of Vault hubs to lace into wheels with standard J-bend spokes.

Race Face Vault J-Bend oversized mountain bike hubs

The Vault hubs were the first to bear the Race Face name, and Race Face engineers seem to have gotten things right. With a growing demand for trail-ready custom mountain bike wheels, the large shelled, 3° quick engaging hubs look like a solid option. The Vault J-bend hubs share all of the same tech as the original straight pull variants with large, long-lasting bearings, labyrinth seals, tool-free interchangeable end caps, and and now a stiff standard hub flange to accept regular J-bend spokes.

Race Face is showing off the new hubs with a set of wheels lacing Vaults to their new Arc Carbon rims, built by Vancouver’s master wheelbuilder Dave McInnes of The Bicycle Hub, and to be ridden by mountain bike legend Wade Simmons.

Race Face is offering the new hubs in 28 & 32 hole drillings, regular & Boost spacing, a number of axle end cap solutions, and either Shimano cassette bodies or for SRAM XD drivers. Front hubs will sell for $175 and rears for $325. The recommend building them up with Race Face ARCH Carbon or Aluminum trail rims, or pretty much anything else on the market.

In their lightest configurations the Vault J-bend hubs claim a front hub weight of 177g, and a rear of 305g. End caps are available for front hubs in: 9×100 QR, 15×100, 15×110 & 20x110mm or for rear hubs in 12×142, 12×148 & 12×150/157.

RaceFace.com
Cory Benson
4,347 articles

Cory Benson is the EU Tech Editor of Bikerumor.com.

Cory has been writing about mountain bikes, enduro, cyclocross, all-road, gravel bikes & bikepacking for over 25 years, even before the industry created some of these names. Prior to Bikerumor, Cory was a practicing Architect specializing in environmental sustainability, has designed bike shops & bike components, and worked as a bike shop mechanic.

Based in the Czech Republic for 15+ years, he is a technical mountain biker, adventurous gravel rider, and short & medium-haul bikepacker. Cory travels extensively across Europe riding bikes, meeting with key European product developers, industry experts & tastemakers for an in-depth review of what’s new, and what’s coming next.

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ascarlarkinyar
ascarlarkinyar
6 years ago

Pffffft. J-bend spokes are out. Weak and problematic. We have been on straight pull ups for years now. Get with the program….

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Tom
Tom
6 years ago
Reply to  ascarlarkinyar

I honestly think the bigger factors are quality of build, and quality of material. I’ve had straight pull spoke wheels that didn’t last for shit, and J bend wheels that were indestructible. J bend spokes also don’t suffer from reorientation in the holes.

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JNH
JNH
6 years ago
Reply to  ascarlarkinyar

If you’ve had problems with spokes you either had cheap spokes or a cheap builder. J-bends or straight pull it really makes no difference.

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Nathan Balsdon
Nathan Balsdon
6 years ago
Reply to  JNH

Race Face’s complete wheels are are straight pull. The problem is to many wheel builders are retro grouches so hubs need to be J-bend or they wont sell.

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JNH
JNH
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan Balsdon

The retro grouches would never spec made in Taiwan Race Face hubs anyway. White Ind, Hope, King, TP Stealth, Onyx or DT240s rule those roosts. Race Face obviously want to sell more hubs and that means selling both styles of hub.

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Nathan Balsdon
Nathan Balsdon
6 years ago
Reply to  JNH

valid point. I actually intended my comment towards ascarlarkinyar but i accidentally clicked the wrong reply button.

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Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
6 years ago
Reply to  ascarlarkinyar

ascarlarkinyar sure has a knack for spewing urban myth and old wives’ tales. Usually trolls try their best to conceal the fact that they’re charlatans, not this one. Pffft!

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Thor
Thor
6 years ago

I’m sure these are nice hubs, but for the same price I would get White Industries hubs instead. Made in the USA and super high quality. As for regular old J-bend spokes… Never had any problems with them and I ride hard. I always use DT Swiss double butted Competition spokes and have never broken one. Maybe the problem is using too few spokes? Always seemed weird to me that I keep seeing wheels with low spoke counts. My 29ers have always had 36 spokes per wheel, although if I built new wheels for a newer bike build I’d probably be forced to go to 32.

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Seraph
Seraph
6 years ago
Reply to  Thor

White hubs don’t have nearly the same flange diameter (for shorter, stiffer spokes) or the stiffness associated with a large hub shell diameter.

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Mike Franke
Mike Franke
6 years ago

Not that I don’t like RaceFace products, because I do, but is there a compelling argument for using these over, say, established hubs from White, King, or, my personal, U.S.-made Industry Nine Torch Classics?

Ditto the responses for J-bend spokes. I’m not a heavyweight, but I’ve never broken a j-bend spoke,and I like the idea that if I did, I’m not beholden to a specific item.

Which is why I still build new wheels with the Torch Classic…..

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Steve
Steve
6 years ago

Nothing spins as freely as the White Ind hubs but a lot of people ignore them because the rear is only 48pt. I put a video on YouTube of my White rear hub spinning forever if you want to see.

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Mark
Mark
6 years ago
Reply to  Steve

How long an unloaded wheel spins is mostly about the amount and viscosity of the grease.

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Robin
Robin
6 years ago
Reply to  Mark

And about the seals. Nevertheless, Steve’s point is still spot on: WI makes great hubs.

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markatanovich
markatanovich
6 years ago
Reply to  Robin

Point taken. I was thinking cup & cone only. I’ve never owned a set of cartridge bearing wheels.

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CW
CW
6 years ago

No direct experience with the wheel system version of these hubs. At $500 for the pair, they are $85 less than I9 torch, $100 less than project321, and $245 less than Chris King. About $104 more than DT 350, which is also Asian made, but the DT is an 18pt engagement, you would be spending around $100 to upgrade the 350 to 36 or 54pt engagement so it would end up even.

So definitely less $$ retail compared to the main players and close to what I would consider it’s competition (dt 350). Nothing wrong with having more options, and I’m sure there are people who will definitely want these for looks alone.

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elvis
elvis
6 years ago
Reply to  CW

what would scare me away is RF’s lack of support. Maybe it’s just an n=~20 where nearly our whole team had to return multiple turbine droppers multiple times all while the shop was basically left footing the bill. Fair or not, they have a lot of bad juju to overcome

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Cheese
Cheese
6 years ago
Reply to  CW

These are the same price as US made White XMRs, CW.

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