A replacement Schlumpf hub (#0226) arrived today, THANKS Florian, incredible customer service which is greatly appreciated!

My GUni adventures started with a GUni KH29 in December 2008. While the 29’er was a good size wheel on which to become familiar with the geared hub in the end I couldn’t find many local off road trails to make the most of it, and was always left with the feeling of not having two genuinely useful gears for off road uni.

I decided to switch the geared hub into my 36’er and had a heap of fun — running longer (165mm) cranks and home made handle bar, using 1:1.5 on dirt roads and fire trails, 1:1 for harder off road stuff. The speed in the big gear on the 36’er is just crazy, especially off road. The longer cranks worked well in both gears – big grind in 1:1.5 and lots of control for tricky stuff in 1:1. The big 36’er wheel really seems to complement the geared hub, spinning smoothly in 1:1.5, much much nicer feeling vs 1:1.5 on a 29’er.

For a road rider it’s hard to imagine anything more fun and well suited than a GUni 36’er. Problem is since I live in the forest practically none of my day to day riding is on sealed road — it’s all off road, ranging from XC to MUni. My rides were becoming limited due to wanting to ride the GUni 36’er but really it was too fast and too big for the majority of trails. Chances are I would end up hurting myself, and with the problems guys were having with the hub (including mine) I started to lose confidence in the GUni 36’er as an off road machine.

I thought about trying a GUni 26’er, but the effective wheel size (with a big tire) is so close to a 29’er…

So… hub #0226 is going into my KH24″. To have a 24″ and 36″ in the one uni should be great on my favorite forest trails. There aren’t that many trails where I want or need to go faster than a single speed 36’er, and to have the 24″ wheel for fun hard stuff — it should be good. I’m really looking forward to trying it out and hopefully using it for some multi day off road adventures.

WOOHOO, Schlumpf Day!

New (lower) torque settings are etched on both sides of the hub, less than half of previous recommended settings. It is thought that over tightening played a role in earlier bearing failures.

Interestingly though the recommended crank arm torque settings remain the same. Related, I had a bunch of problems with cranks and my old hub and now have a pair of milled 150mm Moment cranks ready to go.

I took the KH24 out for one last ride as a single speed uni, at Trentham Falls late this afternoon.

I pulled the KH24″ apart tonight to get the wheel ready to be rebuilt and also check on frame compatibility as my KH29 frame wasn’t compatible with the Schlumpf Hub. Thankfully no such prob with the KH24.

The plan is to really look after #0226, not that I didn’t look after the original hub but geared hubs do take some looking after and no doubt you learn stuff the first time around which hopefully will help this time.

Fingers crossed the GUni KH24″ will be mobile for the weekend ride, BOOYAH!