Tires stiff/sluggish after bearing overhaul

[anotherjeff]

I took the opportunity to overhaul my hubs/bearings the other day. I was pretty generous with the grease. I used Park PPL-1. Now my wheels spin very sluggishly and don't really have any inertia.

Bike is a Felt F85 road bike, stock wheels.

Thoughts?

[Joe_W]

When setting the play in the hubs, account for the additional load by the quick release skewer. You can do this by working on the wheel while it is installed in the trueing stand. Other possibility: put a stack of washers where the fork ends (or drop outs) would go, tighten QR as you would on the bike, set bearing play.

You could try doing that while the wheel is installed in the bike but usually there is not much space to do so.

[cyclerUK]

Overtight bearing adjustment or the grease is too thick.?

[RBurrelli]

Loosen them up a little. It is common to overtighten them if this is the first time you have done bearings.

[trevgbb]

Don't know your brand of grease, if not bike type, may be too thick.

OR, you have over tightened the lock nuts and cones, the wheel should spin freely for a time without any play in the hub, if done correctly, the valve (without reflector installed) should settle at the bottom when the wheel stops, can be difficult to get right and may need more than one go at it.

OR, and more importantly, you may not have tightened the lock nut against the cone sufficiently tight, this allows the right hand cone to run itself into the bearing under load, and will eventually destroy your hub