[doktoree]

A month ago I visited Soul-Kozak factory in the eastern Poland. It was very interseting to meet with Mariusz Kozak. Till this year Mariusz had not his own CNC machine so he was forced to cooperate with many co-producers. With such solution he was unable to control all stages of production. Some of co-producers were not fair and that results in not perfect quality of some of his products. For example he had to glue (Loctite 603) SKF bearings into hub body because of poor accuracy of his co-producers.

Now things have changed.

Mariusz purchased new CNC machine HAAS TL-1HE.

The second CNC machine is on the way to his factory.
Now Mariusz controls all stages of production of bb and hub axles, hub bodies, rotors etc. Expect the new quality of Soul-Kozak products. Mariusz made also some innovations for 2006 season:

1. SKF bearings pressed into hub body instead of old glued-in
2. new, stronger spring in the rear hub
3. new rubber hub's seals
4. new shape of pawls
5. new, long lasting anodised coating (black only)

He is working also on new ultra-light alu/ti skewers. Here you have some pics of prototype parts of them

All products have 2 year warranty. They are ultra-light and much cheaper than Extralite or Tune.

More info HERE

doktoree

 

[bhsavery]

i want a cnc machine

 

[BOhNSAI!!!]

i want a cnc machine

who in their right mind wouldn't

Theres a nice one where I work, now if only I can sneak in there and use it

 

[Mattias_Hellöre]

HAAS is good NC machines, standardized and massproduced means lower prices and no decrease in quality.

In ONE service car it should contain 95% of all parts that could fail in any HAAS machine.

If i had the money (80.000 EUR) I should just buy one HAAS, one downside with these machines is own programming language not generic GE FANUC or Heidenhain.

Mariusz, keep the good work, I will buy some hubs and BBs.

 

[Janosik]

Now Mariusz controls all stages of production of bb and hub axles, hub bodies, rotors etc. Expect the new quality of Soul-Kozak products. Mariusz made also some innovations for 2006 season:
doktoree

Hi
Do you know the wieght of "new" products?

 

[Cloxxki]

Have bearings always been SKF? What I hear is you get a few (dry weather) races out of them. I hope to get the world's best heavy-duty bearings to not have to deals with bearing swaps too much after I start using my regrettably bought S-K hubs.

 

[doktoree]

Janosik: the weights will be more or less the same.
Cloxxki: AFAIK the bearings still will be SKF

 

[Emax]

Doktoree,

Do you know when the hubs with SKF bearings will become available? I've just ordered a road hub set and Mariusz said the bearings weren't SKF, but some other manufacturer of same quality, I forget the name he mentioned...

Thanks

 

[doktoree]

Soul-Kozak bearings

Doktoree,

Do you know when the hubs with SKF bearings will become available? I've just ordered a road hub set and Mariusz said the bearings weren't SKF, but some other manufacturer of same quality, I forget the name he mentioned...

Thanks

I spoke with Mariusz and was told bearings are SKF. I think manufacturer of bearings - in fact - does not matter. The only thing is good quality of the bearings and Mariusz take care about it. Trust him.

 

[Cloxxki]

If I hear wheels giving up after 50km, I don't trust the bearings.

 

[MaLóL]

If I hear wheels giving up after 50km, I don't trust the bearings.

This happens with soul kozak hubs? really? who had this kind of problems with theses hubs? You know theres too many people talking about issues with extralite hubs but noboy owns these hubs due to their proces, i hope there´s not the same problem with soul kozak hubs... people talk too much sometimes.

 

[nino]

If I hear wheels giving up after 50km, I don't trust the bearings.

well - i have seen hubs that didn't do much more than 50 km and they looked like no other hub i have ever seen...they are a big NONO for me!

 

[Janosik]

well - i have seen hubs that didn't do much more than 50 km and they looked like no other hub i have ever seen...they are a big NONO for me!

I repaet what I said some time ago

Im from Poland. As you probably know it isnt reach country and if those hubs were as bad as NINO said nobody will ride on them( soul kozak hubs are cheper then extralite but still expensive )
look:
http://www.light-bike.com/forum/album_cat.php?cat_id=16
http://www.light-bike.com/forum/album_cat.php?cat_id=10

www.light-bike.com is rather new(about 6 month ) forum and thare are a lot of soul kozak hubs users

I have pair of soul kozak hubs. Before I bought it I was talking with some users

Thare are the problems

1. The alu from which are they made is so tough that it is hard to anodize it and made logo So the quality of logo isnt good
2 I dont know the name of this part but it is made out of aluminim and you have to use a cassete with spider
3 In the beginig the rolling resistance is rather high
4 I heard about the problem with berings but it gone

Janosik

 

[nino]

big doubts...

I repaet what I said some time ago

Im from Poland. As you probably know it isnt reach country and if those hubs were as bad as NINO said nobody will ride on them( soul kozak hubs are cheper then extralite but still expensive )
look:
http://www.light-bike.com/forum/album_cat.php?cat_id=16
http://www.light-bike.com/forum/album_cat.php?cat_id=10

www.light-bike.com is rather new(about 6 month ) forum and thare are a lot of soul kozak hubs users

I have pair of soul kozak hubs. Before I bought it I was talking with some users

Thare are the problems

1. The alu from which are they made is so tough that it is hard to anodize it and made logo So the quality of logo isnt good
2 I dont know the name of this part but it is made out of aluminim and you have to use a cassete with spider
3 In the beginig the rolling resistance is rather high
4 I heard about the problem with berings but it gone

Janosik

sorry - but Kozak has a long way to go to have his reputation of trash-parts repaired...

below is a picture of 60km old bearings(40 miles!!!)
http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=78190&d=1093888764

and the according freehub of the rear hub.(40 miles!!!). soon after that the freehub would "explode" and the threadded part where the locknut goes would separate from the body. the pawls wouldn't engage because too much dirt was already in there and the cassette made it's way through the freehub soon after that as well...
http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/showpost.php?p=1442743&postcount=31

i have seen the above parts live, i know the owner and several others that had similar problems. he better re-designs the hubs before selling them to the public who does the testing at cost!!!

 

[Janosik]

sorry - but Kozak has a long way to go to have his reputation of trash-parts repaired...

below is a picture of 60km old bearings(40 miles!!!)
http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=78190&d=1093888764

and the according freehub of the rear hub.(40 miles!!!). soon after that the freehub would "explode" and the threadded part where the locknut goes would separate from the body. the pawls wouldn't engage because too much dirt was already in there and the cassette made it's way through the freehub soon after that as well...
http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/showpost.php?p=1442743&postcount=31

i have seen the above parts live, i know the owner and several others that had similar problems. he better re-designs the hubs before selling them to the public who does the testing at cost!!!

Hi

As I said freehub is made of aluminium and you have to use a casset with spider(and screw it strongly). Some time ago soul kozak made his hubs with ceramic berings. If old berings ware as bad as you said I would replece it by ceramic.

As I said some time ago I was takling with some Suol-kozak hubs user and they didnt say any word about berings.(maybe now berings are much better)

 

[doktoree]

sorry - but Kozak has a long way to go to have his reputation of trash-parts repaired...

below is a picture of 60km old bearings(40 miles!!!)
http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=78190&d=1093888764

and the according freehub of the rear hub.(40 miles!!!). soon after that the freehub would "explode" and the threadded part where the locknut goes would separate from the body. the pawls wouldn't engage because too much dirt was already in there and the cassette made it's way through the freehub soon after that as well...
http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/showpost.php?p=1442743&postcount=31

i have seen the above parts live, i know the owner and several others that had similar problems. he better re-designs the hubs before selling them to the public who does the testing at cost!!!

yes Nino, I know this post from german IBC forum very well. I spoke about it with Mariusz. Remember that with every ultra-light part - especially rear hub - this COULD happen.
I could give you some examples from polish MTB world, where expensive Tune hubs were destroyed after ONE RIDE. Once during road training new rear Tune hub suddenly stopped after 50km. This hub was send to Tune where it was repaired. After this we have the same situation: the rear wheel suddenly stopped during normal ride.
Another time my friend broke Tune front hub body during NORMAL ride.
So what?? Should we think Tune is a junk?? I don't think so. I could say however my experiences with Tune are rather bad.

So, please Nino don't write about bad reputation of Soul-Kozak products. One post on IBC forum is definitely to less to give AN OBJECTIVE opinion. Your experiences (and your friends) with Soul-Kozak are not good. It's ok. You may have your own point of view but remember we should have several user's opinions to make an objective statement. So far there are to less Soul-Kozak users to do it.

 

[Cloxxki]

I have to speak up.

I bought a batch of 6 S-K hubs. Some were deleivered with faulty spoke number, which can happen, but some also with non-alternation spoke holes. Can't be made into a wheel, therefor. I'm going to get back one hub from my wheelbuilder after a loooong while soon, and send it in for replacement. It's a non-disc front, which uses extremely tiny bearings. I wonder if it's worth throwing an expensive light rim at that hub. I have some S-K wheels with Stan's rims built up, but I frankly daren't ride them yet, espeically as I hear too many horror stories.
Of course I was recommended to look at S-K by a person I regarded hightly, and only AFTER I spent my money the bad reviews started coming in, and along with that my faulty hubs. I did get some sapre bearings for my trouble, but the whole idea of spare bearings just frightens me.
I spread my little mileage over a whole stable of bikes, but did manage to have baaaad luck with lightweight WTB hubs, and this stuff is way lighter still...

 

[nino]

yes Nino, I know this post from german IBC forum very well. I spoke about it with Mariusz. Remember that with every ultra-light part - especially rear hub - this COULD happen.
I could give you some examples from polish MTB world, where expensive Tune hubs were destroyed after ONE RIDE. Once during road training new rear Tune hub suddenly stopped after 50km. This hub was send to Tune where it was repaired. After this we have the same situation: the rear wheel suddenly stopped during normal ride.
Another time my friend broke Tune front hub body during NORMAL ride.
So what?? Should we think Tune is a junk?? I don't think so. I could say however my experiences with Tune are rather bad.

So, please Nino don't write about bad reputation of Soul-Kozak products. One post on IBC forum is definitely to less to give AN OBJECTIVE opinion. Your experiences (and your friends) with Soul-Kozak are not good. It's ok. You may have your own point of view but remember we should have several user's opinions to make an objective statement. So far there are to less Soul-Kozak users to do it.

sorry - i'm well into the lightweight world and there are too many stories about faulty S-K hubs...
i would never suggest those hubs to anybody.but then i never suggest Tune carbon hubs either, especially not for MTB use or heavier riders. certain parts have their limits.

but as you say, that's just my opinion.

 

[Janosik]

sorry - i'm well into the lightweight world .

As I recognize doctoree he is also good at lightweight world(but he ride a lot and speak less then you ) and probably his new bike isnt havier then your

 

[Emax]

Since the durability of the S-K hubs is being questioned - isn't there a 2 year warranty? If so, did those of you whose hubs were faulty - get replacement hubs or just bearings? How was Kozak about honoring the warranty? Any issues?

I checked the product reviews - no mention of Soul-Kozak hubs.

Thanks