Bicycle hubs are rarely the subject of major innovation, with legacy brands seemingly making minor improvements to already reliable hubs in the name of weight savings and increased engagement.
British-based KOM appears to have thrown the instructions out of the window, though, with the brand’s Xeno hubs featuring two separate concentric axles as opposed to one, and positioning the ratchet on the other side of the hub.
KOM says its hub design offers unmatched stiffness and strength, providing better conditions for the bearing to operate, resulting in low pedalling drag.
The hubs feature a modular design, making everything replaceable and allowing for customisable colourways to match your bike.
Uniquely, the hubs are only compatible with KOM’s disc rotors, which feature a larger centre, leaving room for the ratchet.
KOM’s hubs are made at its HQ in the UK's Peak District, with rear hubs starting at £550 and front hubs at £275, including disc rotors.
The brand makes the Xeno hubs for road, gravel and mountain bikes, all of which feature a lifetime warranty.
Two axles
Most hub designs see the hub shell running on two bearings on a single axle, with a freehub body slid into the driveside, running on another bearing.
KOM says this design positions the main hub shell bearing, which takes the most load, in a position that sees the most leverage, causing misalignment and increasing drag.
This drag can also lead to increased wear according to the British brand, something KOM founder Steve Elkins set out to fix.
KOM’s Infinity Drive design integrates two concentric axles, each running on its own pair of bearings.
One of the axles is individually engaged, depending on whether you are coasting or pedalling.
Both axles run the whole length of the hub, increasing strength, with the ratchet system placed on the other side of the hub to allow for the bearings to sit at the ends, reducing leverage and distributing force evenly throughout the hub.
KOM says this enables the bearings to run smoother, with less misalignment and a stronger construction, meaning they perform better under pressure.
Wrong-end ratchet
The Xeno hubs use a spring-backed pawl-and-ratchet system that's found on regular hubs, with KOM giving them 120 points of engagement, resulting in an engagement angle of 3 degrees.
A cap on the non-driveside of the hub enables you to access the ratchet, but it also acts as a mount for the disc rotor.
KOM says it has carefully designed the disc rotor to add structural integrity to the drive ratchet, acting as a cage and taking on the radial forces produced at the drive ring.
The rotor itself is isolated from the drive mechanism, bolted directly to the hub shell.
