Yesterday out on a leisurely ride on my local trails, my rear hub bearings catastrophically failed. As I was heading towards the switch backs, my rear hub felt grabby. The whizzy sound had turned dull and then my chain jammed. I got off and had look- nothing visual but when I rocked the wheel it shimmied like a belly dancer at the cassette to hub junction. POOP I SAY! so back to the car. I had to pedal (at least it is all downhill) as the cassette felt like it wanted to grab and throw me to the ground.
Some background: I bought this fine Hadley SDH rear hub about four years ago. It was first built onto a Syncros DSP32 and tortured in Whistler on the skinnies and ladder drops with no complaint. Then as I started to race more, I rebuilt the wheels with Syncros DP25 rims. Mind you I never opened up the hub for service in all this time- don't ask me why. So after four years of abuse it finally let go.
OK- so I get home and tear it apart. The only thing gone bad was the drive side bearing:
arrow points to bearing sheared in half!
Nothing else was damaged fortunately and all I need to do is put some new bearings in. I was really worried that my cassette was blown. For awhile I had looked at getting ceramic bearings and swapping in the bolt on axle kit, now I have to save up and get all the parts. I will most likely just get the bearings and then take the whole thing to Hadley and have them do the work and get all new seals while I am at it. Guess I will be on the road bike for a-bit and do some more street/park riding....
check out how the bearing skid in the axle-
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