I don’t believe that was the original intention, or if it was, it’s a silly way to do it. Someone told me it was to make the KH hubs more difficult to copy.
I just ordered the following from UDC:
New '09 Nimbus Hub; 100% chromoly. Strong and not brittle like Alum. flanges.
Set of 14g black spokes & nipples
Rim tape for LM
And…one complete wheel build with LM rim & nimbus hub, to have as backup.
3 cross pattern.
Should have everything by this Friday! 
(I thought a lot about going with the new '09 KH hub, but decided on the nimbus since it’s very well established, is all chromoly and very strong. I also know several MUni riders who have switched out their '07 KH hubs for this one and love it!)
This is right. alot of unicycle parts from different companies are made in the same factories, so to make sure no one made extra KH hubs on production day and painted them a different color with a different brand name, they added the horrible KH cutout in the flange.
My '07 KH trials has the same flange, but after inspecting it closely today, there are no signs of any stress fractuers…yet!
Of course, I haven’t ridden my trials anywhere near as much or as hard as my KH MUni. But I may do some big stair jumps with it while my MUni is out of commission.
on my brothers nimbus hub the bearings got loose after a while…
That can happen to any hub. A problem like that isn’t confined to one company’s hub. I have 3 Nimbus hubs and the bearings on all of mine are fine.
How exactly would the bearings get “loose”. The cranks tighten against the retainer ring, which press against the bearings, so there wouldn’t be any in/out movement. Plus they are pressed on the tapered splined axle, so I don’t see how they could come loose. Unless you meant something else.
they are loose like you can take them on and off if you’d like to…
I’m still not getting what you mean. Unless you mean after you remove the cranks and bearing caps, like they are loose on the tapered spline? Again, that can’t happen while the cranks are on, since it’s all pressing up snug against the retainer rings, which are against the bearings and keeping them totally in place against the inner (thinner)
rings.
There’s no way the bearings can move outward unless the cranks come loose and move outward on the splines, allowing a gap for the bearings to move. And even then, the bearings are so tightly pressed onto the tapered splined axle, it takes a pitman to get them off! So unless you mean that your bearings are literally falling apart and going to pieces, I don’t really know what you mean. In any case, I’m pretty sure it’s not a common problem with the current nimbus hub. At least I hope not! Josh at UDC likes it and didn’t mention any such problem to me.
I might have mentioned this, Terry, but after badly bending two KH hub flanges, I switched over to a black Nimbus hub over two years ago and have had no problems since. I suspect the new KH hubs are even better than the Nimbus, but I haven’t had reasons to swap mine out yet.
JL
Thanks John, yeah I knew you had the nimbus for quite a while now, and you are the main reason why I decided to go with the nimbus, plus the fact that it’s all chromoly, including the all-important FLANGE, vs brittle Aluminum on the KH. I just feel better about the fact that the nimbus is time-tested and reliable. And since you’re apparently happy with it, that’s more than good enough for me! 
Don’t want to make anyone mad(but). That is why there is no warranties on unicycles. You can’t predict what people are going to do on these things. Terry is a great rider, but he is pretty hard on equipment (on drops). When KH makes a unicycle there is a strength to weight ratio. If KH unicycles were super heavy duty they would weigh so much no one would buy one. If they were super light they would break. He did have a problem with his hubs. He has adressed the problem and now its fixed.
Thanks. I’m a big proponent of rolling out of drops to distribute the force of impact, and even my rim has stayed almost perfectly trued since I had it built over two years ago!
Like John Long, yourself and many others–including Josh at UDC have said-- the problem was the design of the '07 hub, with the “KH” Cutouts in the flange that made it weak! Other than that, my MUni has held up surprisingly well!
Aluminum is a great material for hub flanges, as it bends much less than steel, which in turn keeps spoke tension better. Profile Hubs were aluminum, and they held up just fine, can’t say that about the cromoly cranks they came with…
I still think I will be happier with the nimbus. Some of the best hardcore MUni guys I know use this hub and swear by it. They report zero failures or problems.
Aluminum is fine in many ways, but it is brittle and more likely to snap or develop stress fractures than it is to bend or flex easily. I’m sure the '09 KH hub will last much longer than the cutout version though. But if cracks and/or stress fractures develop in the aluminum flange, corrosion sets in and it starts to degrade.
That’s exactly what happened to mine. The new solid KH flange should prevent this.
Right on terry! I agree that the nimbus is probably the best choice, that’s what I prefer too. I think it is rediculus how many people are blindly obsessed with aluminum, w/o any consideration of it’s weaknesses. Also, many things in unicycling are poorly engineered. And while they may hold up for some people, it will never overcome the fact that the product is flawed.
For the most part, the profile hubs have had an excellent track record. Hopefully the new kh hub will as well. Aluminum is not neccesarily brittle, however it does fatigue more easily than good chromoly. W/o a more significant weight loss, I still prefer a fairly well designed chromoly isis hub to a more “fashionable” choice that I could see failing under heavy, consistent use
Nathan Hoover might join the team with his leg armor. I’ve been known to wash my MUni from time to time before air travel. It’s just so much less messy, even if you put the wheel in a trash bag, without all that dusty dirt everywhere.
And I guess Terry has a point with the elements getting into cracks in the finish on steel parts. That could be seawater, salt air, road salt or just plain water. But it would probably have more of an effect on frames than hubs. Looks like Terry’s hub died from a combination of hard riding and possibly the little KH cut-outs.
I would of went with the 09 hub. =p
I think you meant, “would have”, or the contraction, “would’ve”. Sorry, but that common grammatical error really gets to me haha. Anyway, I think I’ll be quite satisfied with the Chromo flange of the nimbus. It’s very well time-tested, and some of the very best, hardcore MUni riders use it and swear by it. That’s more than good enough for me! (I know I already said this in an earlier post, but it bears repeating! :p)
Read the handbook…wash ur uni after every ride or the warranty is void.