[marciero]

Resurrecting this thread as I am in the same boat as the OP. Pulling the gravel/bikepacking bike down from the hook I noticed the Deore XT FH 8010 hub (which the OP was considering) is completely trashed. The grinding is so bad you can feel it through the pedals while riding, whether coasting or pedaling. Clean and grease of the cups, cones, bearings did not help the roughness. There is also a lot of roughness in the freehub-like sand in there, which I did not remove. There is significant side-to-side play in the wheel, etc. etc.

So am rethinking my "value" choice in rear hubs, at least for this application. The bike has seen some pretty extreme conditions, but still, my experience with road Shimano is that the lower-tiered components are pretty good. True, I had not serviced the bearings in the two years, but that would not have addressed the freehub issue which is where the side-to-side play is coming from. I refuse to do freehub service, at least on Shimano.

Not wanting to spend $0.5k on a hub I am down to Hope pro 4 and DT 350 as discussed above. I am intrigued by the various non-pawl engagement systems- DT, Onyx, I-nine, etc. I came across the new Shimano XTR 9100 series. I am ruling this out because it is limited to micro spline and I have 10 speed HG shimano (though it is confusing that several websites-CC, Backcountry, etc- seem to picture the old 9000 series hub which is clearly HG). Still curious though. Does anyone have details on this design? It is described on CC web site as "two ratcheting driver plates" that "glide across each other while coasting but engage rapidly when force is applied to the pedals". This sounds a little like the DT system, though it is not clear how the plates engage with each other.

In any case, looks like I will be ordering the Hope or the DT. I'm thinking either will be fine. Curious about new Shimano system though.