We brought you a look at The Hive’s Chub hubs from Sea Otter back in April. We’re showing them to you again because they’ve touched down in the UK…

The USP of the made-in-Petaluma hubs is, of course, their impressive girth. Whatever the technical merits of oversized flanges and the associated shorter spokes and enormous hub shells, clearly Chub hubs are mainly going to sell on their highly distinctive looks. There’s also a splendid frisson of cognitive dissonance when you pick one up – they’re so big that you expect them to be heavy and then end up nearly launching them into orbit.

The low weight is thanks to the carbon fibre shell, which is bonded to the aluminium flanges. The singlespeed disc hub, designed to take a screw-on freewheel, comes in at 301g, or 292g if you go for the titanium M10 axle bolts rather than the standard stainless steel. Up front, you can choose from a regular QR hub at 160g or a through-axle model in 15 or 20mm flavours at 224g. The Hive makes much of its precision machining, ensuring accurate bearing and disc alignment. All the hubs use Japanese bearings.

Chub hubs aren’t a cheap option, though. You’re looking at £124.99 for the fronts and £169.99 for the rear. The 9spd freehub version that was at Sea Otter is still in the works – more on that as we get it. Find out more at www.bythehive.com or from importers Jungle Products ([email protected]/01423 780088.