whats the best hub? Is it the profile? How many splines does the profile hub have?
Best for what? The profile is strong and garaunteed, but expensive and has a history of problems with keyway slop. The new KH/Onza is i think lighter, probably just as strong and deffintiely cheaper, but doesnt have the lifetime garauntee. The profile has something like 36 splines, the number doesn’t really matter except to say that it has a large number of small splines rather than a small number of large splines (ala original KH hub). Others to consider would be the Qu-Ax splined hub and the Koxx. The koxx is ISIS which i think means that it will take standard bike cranks, all the others only take their own brand cranks except that the New KH/Onza will take old Onza cranks and Qu-ax make some cranks that fit the old KH but not the Qu-Ax hub. Als o you have to consider the spoke numbers, as i think the qu-Ax comes in 48 spoke and the rest are 36 spoke. Hope that helps.
Profiles are 48 spline, 36-spoke, and the new KH/Onza are 36 spline, 36-spoke.
My Profile axle has always been creaky. My DM axle (first splined axle for unicycles) never made a sound or gave me any problems. That said, the newer types are probably more what you want. If you plan to break anything, get the Profile.
To answer the question, the best hub is the profile. Hence the insane price and money-where-our-mouth-is guarantee pledge. If you break a profile, chances are a different hub would have broken too.
However, I’ve heard (elsewhere on these boards) that the Profile hub is only guaranteed for the black splined area, and not the flanges, center barrel or keyway. If there were an issue with keyway slop, the guarantee wouldn’t cover it (as far as I know).
I’ve recently recieved a KH/Onza hub and it seems bomb proof. Its the first decent hub I’ve seen thats been made specifically to fix unicycle related problems. Where the 36 splined original onza hub was a modified bike design (obvious when you take it apart), the KH/Onza looks to be specifically developed with unicycling in mind from the outset. I personally would get a KH/Onza, since the splines are totally invincible, there’s no issues with keyway slop and its cheaper. If you’re going to break a profile hub for sure, then get one of those. If you’ve tried and failed (like me) to break an onza or similar, get the KH/Onza, its stronger still.
Loose.
The Profile axle and cranks are guaranteed, the hub is not. That said, they are very good about it. I’ve just had a sloppy hub replaced; it was easy to work with Profile and I think they have done the press-on, which now requires a hydraulic press, at no charge.
The Profile hub specs and assembly process were changed slightly last spring to result in a much tighter fit between hub and axle. Unfortunately, I don’t think they made a visible change that would let us know which hubs are pre- and post-change. However, the new changes should eliminate the slop-over-time problems, according to Profile.