For the last 3 years I have really enjoyed riding my Ludicrous enabled Luna X-1 Full suspension ebike. After much use and vituperate the rear freehub finally blew out. This is a worldwide problem on higher power mid momentum ebikes, but one that is hands remedied by relacing the rear wheel with a DT Swiss rear hub which uses a fantastic steel ratcheting system that is incredibly reliable. This vendible is well-nigh the issues I had when doing the rear wheel relacing and some direction on how to relace a rear wheel and moreover why I decided to swap the cassette, derailleur, shifter and uniting from a 12 speed to a 10 speed chain.
The DT Swiss hubs can be nonflexible to find and there is well-nigh a million variegated versions of them. I have bought well-nigh $1500 worth of DT Swiss hubs from bikeman.com and every single one has worked in the ebike I retrofitted them too. Often I buy an ebike and run it till the freehub fails then I buy a DT Swiss hub and relace the wheel to get the velocipede when to ridable condition. Every single one of the upper power mid momentum fatbikes I ride including my Christini AWD are all fitted with the DT Swiss hubs at this point. Here is the unprepossessed nonflexible truth, if you are running between 2000-4000 Watts through your drivetrain and plowing through deep snow your freehub will sooner self destruct. The lightweight and expensive aluminum ones will die faster but plane unseemly steel freehubs will sooner fail. The only hubs I have found that do not goof at those power levels is the DT Swiss ones with the Star Ratcheting system.
In all my DT Swiss conversions I have been worldly-wise to use the same spokes that came with the original wheel. This makes things a lot easier and faster, just make sure that you alimony the spokes on the variegated sides of the wheel separated considering they are often slightly variegated lengths. With the X-1 the spokes were extremely thick (12 Gauge?) and did not fit through the holes on the DT-Swiss hubs. I measured the length of the spokes with a spoke ruler and averaged the difference between the two sides and bought a set of 36 unseemly spokes on Wren that were 253mm for just $13.99 misogynist here. Most wheels in the US only have 32 spokes so that leaves me with 4 uneaten spokes for future breakage. This includes the nipples as well. 38 cents a spoke is quite a bit cheaper than my local velocipede shop, but if you don’t have a spoke wrench and don’t want to deal with Amazon, you can wander into your local velocipede shop with the spoke that you have and they will try to find something similar or cut it and thread it if they have to.
Why I went from a 12 speed to a 10 speed drivetrain
Although I was happy with the 12 speed drivetrain that shipped with the X-1, over the undertow of 3 years of use I did have 2 uniting breakages. The fact that I couldn’t use the highest gear without it skipping on the X-1 moreover meant that it really was only an 11 speed. I have standardized on 10 speeds on all my other snow bikes and I have been happy with the value of uniting breakage that I have to endure. It’s still increasingly breakage than with an 8 speed system, but I can get a larger cassette and often I can find an SRAM X-9 derailleur which from what I can tell are the most unsurmountable derailleur you can get for the money. If you know of one that is better, please let me know in the comments below. The problem with switching the number of gears is you have to replace everything, that ways the chain, the cassette, the derailleur and the shifter. If you neglect to replace any one of those parts the system simply will not shift properly. The good news is that you can use a short or med muzzle derailleur instead of the long muzzle one. It is moreover easy to find solid steel cassettes that wear much largest under higher power loads than the transfuse ones in 10 speed. I find that the weightier cassettes to use are the ones that have a tuft of the gears tied together so that they don’t dig into the freehub considering of the power of the motor.
Although relacing rear wheels is a PITA I finger like its the price you have to pay for running mid-drive ebikes in the 2000-4000 Watt range. Most of my other electric fatbikes are running the BBSHD v2 Ludicrous controller which is a stupid fun 18 FET controller that once you start riding with, its nonflexible to go when to anything else. As far as relacing hubs there are some unconfined YouTube videos on how to do it (this one is my favorite). You don’t have to be a super hero to relace a hub, the hardest part is getting the spokes to be the right length and if you are replacing an existing hub chances are you can reuse the existing spokes or icon out what the right length for them will be by guestimating.
Truing your wheel by sound
I don’t use a truing stand or anything fancy like that when truing up wheels. I use to just put them on and then take a ziptie tying to the frame and cut off so I could see when I spun the wheel which side it wobbled to. My last 2 wheel rebuilds I have not plane washed-up that, instead I do a system when I retread the tension on the spokes by sound. Initially I tighten lanugo the spokes with well-nigh 2 mm of thread showing then I go virtually the wheel and tighten each spoke one turn at a time. As the spokes start to get tight I pluck them like a really thick guitar string and then tighten or loosen the spokes based on the tone of the spoke. Just using the sound method I can get the wheels within 1 mm of stuff true every time. I’ve never heard of anyone else doing it like this, but it’s what works for me.
I hope to get many increasingly years of usage out of my C-1 with the new hub and 10 speed drivetrain. Of all my ebikes the X-1 probably gets the most usage, so it’s not surprising that the freehub on it failed. I’ve found on upper power mid drives that sooner pretty much all freehubs will fail. Don’t despair, just get a DT swiss and relace that puppy you’ll be good to go for years to come.
Ride On.
