White Industries has been making bicycle components for a long, long time. Founder Doug White started out with The Pegger, a simple Velcro strap to keep your pants leg from getting caught in the chain (check out this article), then went on to make bikes, derailleurs, cassettes, and now hubs and chainsets.
The CLD (CenterLock Disc) hubs were their first to get a more modern, swoopy profile. They look the part on the road, but are ready for mountain bikes, too. That means anything from pavement to, let’s say, trail riding is fair game. I put this set through the paces on my cyclocross bike, which sees a fair amount of year ’round riding and training use on gravel, road and dirt, plus the expected racing…
The hubs were sent laced to Zipp 303 rims, built by WheelBuilder.com, so we only have complete weights. Front was 784g, rear 897g, for a total of 1,681g. Claimed weights for the hubs are 145g and 265g.
Not being tubeless ready rims, I ran latex tubes with various non-tubeless tires from Challenge and Continental during the test. Despite at least one race with too-low pressure seeing the rim meet some roots, I never flatted, which was both surprising and comforting. Build quality was excellent and the wheels stayed strong and true. That said, I still prefer tubeless and had these been my own wheels would have laced them to something ready for it.
The hubs come as either QR or thru axle and are not convertible. Except that you can use Mavic QR adapters inside White’s thru axle end caps, so if you’re still running QR but want to be future proof, simply buy the thru axle hubs and order Mavic QR end caps online. UPDATE: White Industries also now makes and includes their own QR endcaps to go from thru axle to QR, no need to order Mavic ones. And, you can go from QR to TA with an axle swap, so it’s technically convertible but not as easy as just swapping end caps.
Hub shells are machined in house from 6061 alloy, and the front gets two sets of sealed cartridge bearings. Choose from 9mm QR, 12mm thru (road) or 15mm thru (mtb, etc.) axles. They also make a 6-bolt disc brake hub, too. Front and rear are available in 24, 28, 32 and 36 hole drillings, coming in black, silver, red, gold, pink, purple and blue.
Out back, all of White’s rear hubs use an 11-speed titanium freehub body, even the XD Driver equipped ones. Inside the shell are three drivers with 24 engagement points, which was adequate for my uses. Mountain bikers might want something a little quicker, but this kept noise at a very reasonable level and offered an acceptable 15º engagement.
Campagnolo freehubs are also available, which are also titanium and 11-speed.
On the bike, they spun impressively free and smooth. A small hole on the non-disc side allows access to a preload adjustment set screw.
The hubs were ridden through a mix of wet and dry rides, warm and very, very cold. They remained bullet proof throughout, ending the test as solid and smooth as they started.
The only sign of wear was a very slight marring of the freehub body. Visible, but not enough to cause any issues with cassette removal or installation.
Among high end aftermarket hubs, White Industries’ offerings are on par in price and weight to most, if perhaps a tad on the heavy side for the rear hub. The CLD hubs retail for $166.50-$186.50 (front) and $327.50-$347.50 (rear). The upside to a non-convertible design for the axles is that everything is purpose built, so there are not tolerance or looseness issues where the wheel connects to the bike. That, combined with White’s precision machining and history of making rock solid components, lends a lot of confidence that these hubs should last a lifetime.
