Was this one of those defective ones or one that served well? I have one from 2015 that soldiers on, but i have one of those son sl hubs from chain reaction waiting in the wings.
Interesting. Do you think you could have repaired the wires and had it function again. I had hopes that you would repair it until I saw the dremel come out to play.
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Maybe. I didn’t realize that the thing was press fit together in the middle like that until it came apart post dremel.
Oh hell, I totally didn’t need to know this. I’d already been trying to convince myself that the possibility of my SP locking up is just an irrational fear.
Even though it has somewhere around 500 miles on it, it just doesn’t spin very well at all. I keep hoping that it will break in at some point, rather than just breaking.
There is such a random distribution of SP hubs. Mine is probably around ~10,000 miles of Seattle grit and winter, including a year riding on the front of a bus across the lake, and it still spins like it did when it was new and powers everything perfectly.
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+1 for high mileage SP hub working fine.
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ah I wouldn’t worry about it too much, I think i had a dud and even then it served me for years and many many miles before developing the bearing play that I think eventually spelled its death. I bought another one to replace it. plus I know a few years ago they were having bearing issues and I think used undersized ones on a few models?
the failure mode was very gradual, first developed some lateral play, then got obviously crunchy to spin by hand, and then eventually after being locked up outside in <0F weather for 8 hours after a sloppy morning commute, froze to death. as soon as I got it spinning by hand, and then got on the bike and rode it slowly in the parking lot, whatever it was broke free and it spun well enough to get me home, just without any of the power generation. so like, it didn’t lock up under me at speed or anything and I don’t feel like that would happen.
SP hubs do feel very “notchy” to turn by hand, but that’s just the very strong magnets wanting the axle to settle between each pole- the push/pull of the magnets pretty much equalizes out at riding speeds, with the momentum of a person+bike system behind it. it’s hard to separate that feeling from the bearings themselves with the hub in hand, but in a bike or stand with no load attached, if you spin the wheel, you can get a better feel for how the bearings are doing
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Thanks for all those words, definitely making me feel better about it.
But, it does take a while for my irrational fears to go away. I developed one back in high school (30 years ago) that I’d meet Cindy Crawford and my fly would be open. Still somewhat obsessively, but subtly, checking my fly to this day, even though I know it’s irrational.
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just wear sweatpants
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I hope to never get to a point in life where wearing sweatpants is right choice.
No offense to sweatpants enthusiasts.
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just wear yoga pants
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I sold a wheelset to @Orc a few years ago. I bet that SP hub is still trucking under extreme duress.
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Lol I shoulda googled.
FWIW the hub that I autopsied had like 4000 fair weather miles on it.
Yes but thanks to your dissection tarck is a lot richer
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Yes (good thing, too, because it’s the only disco dynamo I’ve got); but my previous SP smoked after about 2500 miles so it’s 50/50 on my machines.