I have purchased at least 3 different Shimano dynamo hubs from Jim and 1 Schmidt. I had been riding year-round commuting EVERY day as well as some truly epic long rides. I've had 2 of the Shimano hubs completely fail, and a currently own a 3rd that is on its way to failing. In the case where they have failed, I have dutifully unlaced the wheel and sent the hubs back to Shimano for replacement. Their turn-around time is rather quick.
The hubs that have failed have lasted as little as a couple of thousand miles to the current one that has about 6,000 miles on it. The Schmidt is still going strong with only about 5k miles. The failures begin with what sounds like "Chunk." The hubs are not "completely" serviceable, the inside component can be removed from the hub if the adjustable bearings on the one side are removed. In the hubs that I have had fail, the cause has seemed to be the magnets of the core coming in contact with the shell somehow. Once it seems to occur, the hubs disintegrate rather quickly. It's not a catastrophic failure, the wheel continues to roll (with significant increase in resistance) and makes A LOT of noise. I agree with your rationalization and justification of using the less expensive hubs on a commuter. That was my plan. After owning dynamo hubs on bikes, the likelihood of putting a bike together WITHOUT a dynamo is very slim. Having reliable lights whenever you might need them is WONDERFUL. I do a lot of errands, social riding, commuting, overnight rides, 24 hour rides, etc. I want a bike that WORKS, all the time... particularly the commuter bike. I'll admit to riding it wet, seldom cleaning, waiting until the last minute to service, etc. Unglamorous bicycle living at its worst. The equipment gets USED and used hard. When something goes wrong, it disrupts the cycle. Coordinating a front hub replacement as a repair is a rather undesirable repair in my book, even though I ENJOY building wheels. My new commuter will be built with a Schmidt disk up front. When the bike is done and ridden a complete year with normal abuse, I hope to use my experience with it's reliability to decide whether to put one on an off-road bike. Might be just the ticket for 24-hour mountain bike racing. On Apr 2, 11:40 am, Larry Powers <lapower...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Jim, > > Can you quantify this any better? > > I run a Son hub on my brevet bike and a Shimano n71 on my commuter. I put > way more miles in all types of weather on my commuter and the Shimano hub is > still going strong. I have ridden it through 3 New England winters. I > bought it because it was cheaper and a failure on a commute is not as > critical to me as a failure on a brevet. > > In your experience how many seasons of year round riding does the average > Shimano n70/71/72 make it through before needing to be replaced? How many > years for the SON before being replaced or needing a rebuild? > > Since I was considering having a new set of Brevet wheels built and was > thinking about using a shimano hub this information will be quite helpful. > > Thanks. > > Larry Powers > > "just when you think that you've been gyped the bearded lady comes and does a > double back flip" - John Hiatt > > > > > Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 09:05:55 -0700 > > Subject: [RBW] Re: shimano alfine generator hubs > > From: thill....@gmail.com > > To: rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com > > > The Alfine is one of the higher-end Shimano dynamo hubs. I have no > > experience with it. But experience with other Shimano dynamos is that > > they are functionally comparable to a SON in everything but > > durability. Winter filth around here kills them, and they are not > > serviceable. > > Jim Thill > > Minneapolis, MN > > > On Apr 2, 10:09 am, Seth Vidal <skvi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Has anyone come across one of these, yet: > > > >http://bike.shimano.com/publish/content/global_cycle/en/us/index/prod... > > > > b/c they look very very shiny and I'm curious how they stand up to the > > > SON's. > > > > -sv > > _________________________________________________________________ > Rediscover Hotmail®: Now available on your iPhone or > BlackBerryhttp://windowslive.com/RediscoverHotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Redisco... --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
