Sram Dual Drive

[Romagjack]

I've put many trouble free wonderful miles on my Quest 2 over the past several years.. I've noticed that my drive wheel is not as "free wheeling" on recent rides and that I need to put more effort into sustaining my usual speed over my usual 16 mile workout course. I've recently cleaned an lubricated the chain, checked the BB, and made sure the disc brakes have clearance no problems there. Shifting through the 3 hub gears and 9 speed cassette is smooth. Still, when I lift the drive wheel off the ground and give it a spin, it slows more rapidly than before. Where I used to be able to maintain 17 mph with minimal effort, the same effort produces about 15 mph. Wondering if there is some kind of maintenance (lube or oil) for the hub recommended? Not much info on the internet.

 

[1happyreader]

Sram lubes .....

1. You or your LBS should be able to repack the cone type wheel bearings with a heavy waterproof grease just like any wheel that did not have the dual drive.

2. You can dip some bike oil into the internals after removing the little red phillips x plug on the non pushrod side. something lighter than Phil Wood Tenacious Oil I guess.

3. I found assembly instructions on the web and drove my SRAM parts provider crazy trying to obtain
part numbers:
Use only SRAM special grease,

part no. 0369 135 200 / ... 201.

Part no. 0369.001.015.

4. Anybody have better luck ??

 

[marshall2389]

The most prominent culprit

The most prominent culprit for unusual drag is low pressure tires. Make sure those are up to full pressure. Then work on wheel trueness, dish, and alignment. Then work on bearings.

 

[billyk]

Tried lubricating the dual drive?

I had a similar problem, and lubing the dual drive helped.

But unlike 1happyreader above, the manual from Bike Friday (link below) says to use some Phil Wood oil on the shifting rod, not internally. Lie the bike on its left side, remove the rod, put a little oil on it, replace (remember not to tighten too much!!!). I *think* that will lube the internals, but maybe not ....???

http://www.bikefriday.com/userfiles/DualDriveManual.pdf

This failing, I would call Bike Friday. They use these drives a lot and are very knowledgeable. They also have a good stock of spare parts. Please report what they say on this forum.

BK

 

[John Tolhurst]

call Bike Friday ... because

call Bike Friday ... because being a small business, they are sitting around with nothing to do, right? You should pursue SRAM, in my opinion.

 

[Andrew 1973]

SRAM Dual Drive - Maintenance-Free

According to SRAM's documentation:

"DualDrive hubs are provided with
permanent lubrication and
maintenance-free under normal
conditions."

There may not be any added benefit to following Bike Friday's Dual Drive manual and like John said, I would go to SRAM with questions rather than bothering Bike Friday about a product that you did not purchase from them.

 

[billyk]

SRAM and Bike Friday

In fact, I'm a longtime customer of Bike Friday and have bought many things from them over the years. Check out their stuff and you might become a customer too. They make what is probably the best mini-folding bike around.

Now, SRAM is well-known for being unresponsive, especially to anything but German-language queries, and unwilling to ship parts to the US. Good luck with that. Bike Friday sells a good selection of SRAM parts, including those very-bendable push-rods that many Quest owners will ultimately need. One assumes they are making a profit when they sell this stuff.

But there's a larger issue here, which I'll explore by example. I am employed as a research scientist, not as a sys-admin or software engineer. Nevertheless, I've written a fair bit of the code used at my lab and elsewhere, and thus get a stream of questions from other users. But it is most definitely not my job to consult on software, and I am quite busy with my own work. I could see these questions as a pure interruption, which they are in the sense that it takes time and I get nothing for it. I could sarcastically tell questioners to RTFM, or go to the consulting desk, and I do discourage simple questions that are explained in the manual. But working in a team means "helping the world go round", and I accept spending some amount of time doing unpaid services like answering user questions that are really not my job. I think Bike Friday similarly sees themselves as part of a bicycle community. By sharing knowledge and pushing that community forward they gain a reputation that makes people like me want to buy stuff from them. We can't abuse that reputation, and they always have the choice to not answer, but I'm sure that if they asked me a question about something I knew I'd spend the 5 minutes it took to give a good answer, even if they weren't paying me. And if everyone took the attitude of being too busy to answer questions that weren't directly related to a sale, we'd all still be riding velocipedes.

After 3000 miles, my dual-drive hub was making a faint clicking while pedaling, and the wheel didn't spin freely. The SRAM documentation aside, lubing the push-rod per the Bike Friday manual fixed it.

BK

 

[jphipps]

LUBRICATING THE DUAL DRIVE?

Bike Friday instructions say put a small amount of Phil Wood oil on pull rod, and lay wheel on the left side over night. The Phil Wood oil will not slide down the rod and lubricate the internals, as it is designed to not do that , it will cling to the part it is applied to. I'm wondering if just laying the wheel on the left side re-distributes the permanent lubricant that is supplied and makes the dual drive perform better?

Jphipps

 

[Romagjack]

Thanks for all the great

Thanks for all the great tips. I always keep full pressure - makes a huge difference in speed. I did a combination of truing the wheel and lubing the pull rod. I rechecked the disc brakes with a business card and made a slight adjustment. Noticeable improvement. You guys are great.