In my shop days (which were fairy brief....little over a year), the ubiquitous KTs were bad enough to make me leery of any coaster hub. Almost every kiddie bike and cheeeeep cruiser had one; some were already shaky from day one, and many others came back to the shop for work pretty quickly. I had written of the Shimano cb-e110 as being basically the same thing, but it's not. I find that they brake pretty strongly (with a tendency to lock up too early for my taste... but with brakes, I feel that "too much" is better'n "not enough") and, more importantly, they take a tune-up very nicely.
I've noticed that the reaction arm of the Shimano CBs still says "Japan" on it, but I think they had piles of the arms lying around and they're sandwiching that reaction arm between locknuts and cones of Chinese origin. No matter; I find that I can adjust the bearings of the Shimano hub quite easily. The KT HiStops I used to work on at the shop were difficult to adjust, probably due to poor tolerances... you'd think you'd have it right, only to find that the hub would bind if you put it back on the bike and spun it. So, you loosen the cones a hair, try again, and you'd find it to be sloppy. This KT hub I have on one of my bikes now, welll..... it works pretty good... the brake is weak but it spins alright.... But, I don't really trust it and I'm actually feeling a bit apprehensive about cracking it open for maintenance.
OTOH, there's a guy on the mtbr forums who has several coaster-equipped mountain bikes that he really rides on real trails, and he swears by the KTs, so maybe there's some trick to it? I'll likely never find out, as I tend to avoid the things.
Most folks on here will, understandably, prefer vintage CB hubs. And I get that; they sure don't make'm like they used to. But, that's the thing.... they don't make'm anymore. At least with the new hubs, you can easily source brand-new parts. Many of the parts for KT and Shimano are available a a carte, and dirt-cheap. I'm pretty sure Veosteel parts are available, too, but they're not as accessible as the others. Worst case scenario, you can buy a complete new hub and transfer the guts to the existing wheel. Finding NOS parts for older Bendix, ND, Morrow, Perry, Musselman, Sachs, etc hubs is a more difficult and more expensive proposition.
