Sigh
Of all the things I’d think might go wrong with the MLCM, I never considered that the bearings on the 5-months-old dynamo wheel would be it. But I gave the wheel a spin this afternoon when the bicycle was up on the workstand and got a chorus of pops and other unhappy sounds.
I ended up taking the front wheel from the Murray Baja Experience so I could have a ridable MLCM, and it was shockingly quiet to ride on wheels with good bearings (the front wheel on the Murray Baja Experience is the 22-year-old front wheel from the Trek, which has substantially more than the 2500 miles I’ve put on this new dynamo wheel) even though it forced me to cut my riding down to 45 miles (because I don’t have a dynamo, thus no headlight, thus no night riding) today.
Shimano claims to have a 2 year warranty on dynohubs, so perhaps I’ll be able to get it fixed for not any more than the cost of a wheelbuild. Failing that, I guess I could just share the front wheel that’s currently on the Trek (though I’d have to then switch away from the 28mm tires that I’ve currently got on the thing.)
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Well, that’s annoying, though good that you figured it out!
Peter White lists Sanyo hubs for 40 USD. Apparently good drag but not as good as the SON. SRAM is also supposed to be better than the Shimano and (at least in some models) SON for drag and is about twice that.
Peter White lists a SON28 – just the hub, not the disc brake version, etc. – in 32 or 36 hole for 245 USD. Given the altitude/temperature changes you ride through and the SON pressure-compensating device, you might have to go to a current-build (post-2003) SON to avoid going through dyno-hubs like jelly beans.