e13 wheels and hub drag
- Thread starter wiscodh
- Start date
new hub?
overtightened?
too thick of grease?
i've had this happen with a mavic hub before.
overtightened?
too thick of grease?
i've had this happen with a mavic hub before.
take it off, clean it, and regrease it with something that is low viscosity.
it was a mavic? lol
i was getting freehub drag, tried everything under the sun to fix it. IMHO it just wasn't that well designed.
I just bought a used Hadley and it had ungodly amounts of drag. The previous owner used incorrect grease and way too much of it. I cleaned it out and put the proper grease and oil and the proper amounts and now its perfect. Underneath all the goop he put inside, the hub was in excellent condition. Unusual amounts of drag will be one of three things, incorrect/too much grease, too much bearing preload, or bad bearings. Take her apart and see what's going on
ooo yea, i forgot bad bearings. good call.
edit: and i actually had the same thing happen to me with one of the used hadley's i bought. cleaned + fresh lube = good as new.
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I have these wheels and they are naturally going to have more drag than other hubs. High engagement hubs such as the E.13, Hadleys, I9 and others will have more drags because there is more friction, it's a bit of a double edge sword with some hubs. That being said, I have taken my hubs apart a few times to put a mixture of phil wood tenacious oil and tri-flow on the pawls and inside the ratchet body. I also put a few dabs of tri-flow on all of the hub bearings and try to find the sweet spot between hub tightness and ability to spin freely. The don't spin as freely as DT swiss hubs I've had in the past but overall they have better engagement and build a stiffer wheel and that was more important to me.
If you didn't have the 36 star ratchet upgrade, then the DT's only have 18 engagement points. That definitely helps reduce drag. Anything over 36poe will probably have a noticeable amount of more drag coming off of 18. If it feels excessive though, then it most likely is. Just use common sense, if you feel it has too much drag then you are probably right.