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I have recently fitted a pair of Fulcrum Racing 6 wheels to my gravel bike which is running GRX. I used a HG500 10 speed cassette which was correctly installed and snug after fitting. However I have only gone to change the cassette after a few weeks (around 3 rides done, 40-50miles) and can see the freehub body has already been chewed into substantially. I can see that it must be aluminium but this looks far to much damage considering the low miles done already and the lack of aggressive riding? Very disappointed and not really happy to put them back on into more significant usage after seeing this occur so soon. Has anyone experience of this model or series and I assume there is little that can be done about it mechanically. I was going to look at the warranty but they were purchased from Wiggle last year so not sure how that could be achieved. Any suggestions please? I have never had this issue but mainly use Shimano which I understand are usually steel bodied but still this seems very bad after such little usage. Now the body is pretty rough to feel and there was lot of metal dust around the body when I removed the cassette which wasn't a good sign.
Had the same thing with my Superstar MTB and Alpkit road wheels. Couldn't get the cassettes off in the end, had to bin both wheels (spokes had broken). Cheap wheels = cheap hub = short life span.
Any cheaper cassettes, e.g, deore or tiagra or lower, will be mostly made from steel cogs bolted together. These will pretty much always dig into any aluminium freehub body, whatever the make.
I've had it on Hope, Stans, etc. all decent brands.
If it's really stuck on, then pulling the freehub off (usually quite easy with modern thru axle hubs) and using a rubber mallet and a vice to knock it off generally works.You can carefully file off the worst bits on the freehub, but it'll just happen again if you use a steel cogged cassette.
It's just what happens with this combo, which is why more expensive cassettes use an aluminium carrier.
Did you get the lock ring on really tight? Those loose sprocket need friction to share the load between the sprockets. My hunch is that if they move under load they’ll then stop. So i expect the that the damage wouldn’t get worse over time
Yes I only put the cassette on for one ride to test and 11-32 cassette as the previous wheel had an 11-36 on. I only noticed this as I switched it over after the first ride out on it and couldn't believe this level of damage had occured from a moderate effort test ride like that. Yes it was properly torqued tightly as all my cassettes are and have never had issue before. Granted most are steel but I have some fulcrum road wheels similar level from about 5yrs ago and they have no markings whatsoever after a decent amount of use with the same type of cassette so I am thinking this is either a bad batch of metal or the more recent models use a softer type of aluminium which isn't up to the demands making the wheelset not much use to me. I think it will get worse as I haven't even done any harder efforts riding, just very gentle flat local loop going not fast, just cruising.
Yes it was properly torqued tightly as all my cassettes are
40Nm IIRC, no grease between sprockets either (or they slide against each other).
I've had numerous Hope hubs on my mountain bikes over the years come supplied with aluminium freehubs. I generally swap them out almost immediately for steel freehubs because of this issue. Steel cassettes will eat into aluminium freehubs like they're made of soft cheese. I've gone to change an aluminium freehub after 4-5 rides with a steel cassette and had to employ the "Remove freehub and cassette then leather it with a mallet until they part company" strategy suggested above.
Happens with all of the 'cheaper' cassettes on alu freehub bodies IME. Usually have to tap the sprockets out of the gouge before removing them from the freehub.
It's not the end of the world and as I say it's very common. Just do your cassette lock ring up super tight and don't worry about it until you need to change the cassette next.
Steel freehub bodies are the way to go or at least ones with a steel insert on one of the splines - certainly for the cheaper cassettes.
Maybe share some photos so we can see if damage is out of ordinary?
But fyi i have same fulcrum 6 and a DT wheelset that I switch a cassette between depending on wet / dry race. They both got equally gouged up even using an slx grade cassette. I ended up buying an xt cassette instead which has 6 rather than just 3 cogs on ali carriers. Thats sorted it but the gouging on both is pretty much identical levels so wouldn't seem like this is a fulcrum thing. Same as above I've had this on hope in the past as well.
Its not like anyone's going to see the damage..I'd suggest just buy a better cassette, file down the burrs and GOI!!
Used too get this problem, I'm a big lad and used to be able to mash an alloy freehub body in a single ride.
I then got told off by an engineer for not torquing the lockring up properly, bought a big torque wrench that went up to 40nm, I no longer have this problem.
Recently swapped over a GRX groupest that I'd done 5 years and thousands of miles on on an alloy freehub, cassette slid straight off.
It's 40nm for a reason.
Thanks for your thoughts about this issue. I have no reinstalled the cassette but have gone tighter now than normal to the point where another press or two and I'm going to struggle to removed it but sounds like it needs to be tighter than normal for sure. The majority of my freehubs have all been steel as I mainly use Shimano wheels. Maybe on the road it's higher grade cassettes like 105 and ultegra. For this GRX 400 groupset I guess it is marketed as tiagra type level groupset. Not at all impressed by the looks of the metal finish compared to my ultegra kit. The metal looks chocolate but that's they way Shimano kit has gone sadly I'm my experience. I've seen Deore xt mechs look battered and bruised after a year or two yet have old stx-rc kit that has done 20x the miles and still looks fresh. Those days are long gone. On the fulcrum wheelset not impressed with the lock of the disc rotors either, even after putting on tight there is slippage so looks like I would have rather had the 6 bolt set up as this was never an issue. I guess I'll put it down to experience moving over it this newer kit that looks pretty much disposable now after a season or two.