Sunday, November 25, 2012

A Couple Years In

It's been over two years since I started riding the S3X. I'm still happy with both of mine, and have had no issues that were the fault of the hub.

I did have one scary little incident where the hub found itself in a "neutral" due to the shifter not being clicked in correctly. I was in the middle of a swirling crowd of tourists, bikes,  rollerbladers, and dogs on 20 foot leashes, etc., when it happened. I was going about 3 mph and was clicked in. It's very hard to recover when the cranks spin loose and you can't click out. Fortunately, I managed to get a foot loose and kept from munching in front of everyone, falling on anybody, or causing a pile-up. I've always been afraid of this, but imagined it would happen while standing and cranking hard. But this was my fault: I just failed to get the shifter clicked in correctly.

Otherwise, the hub has performed faultlessly. As I have said before, I don't skid, or apply tremendous back pressure when I ride, and I use a brake to bleed off speed when necessary. Most of the time I'm in top gear, and shift infrequently. I used to think, mistakenly, that the planetary gears did not spin in the top gear, but have been told they do, so it seems like staying in the top gear most of the time doesn't save wear and tear. There seemed to be some drag when in the lower gears, but that cleared up with breaking in.

I have been reading some of the reviews on Amazon, etc., and people have had very mixed results with their S3X hubs. Aside from the complaints about lash, the shifter design, and other niggly things, there are a number of people claiming failures with very little use. Some have admitted hard use like skidding, off road, etc., but others have said they broke in under 100 miles of normal use. These are not cheap hubs, and I would be pissed if the hub broke. One should be able to expect years of service out of a product that costs this much. I am and will continue to be somewhat careful with mine, as it is a somewhat delicate mechanism that is subjected to pretty forceful stresses.

Let us know how your hub is holding up. I'm very interested to know how others have fared.