January 14th to 28th: Capreo Hub Saga – ICE trike Maintenance
Day 93 to Day 107
Now that we are in our new home it’s time to address some maintenance issues. First our chains are filthy. My chain lubricant wore out and since we have mostly been off the beaten track I’ve been using motor oil. It’s not great, it’s made to run at high temperatures so it’s thicker than lube for a bicycle chain, and it usually contains detergents which means it tends to get sticky once the oil dries up and attracts dirt. The best way I’ve found to wash the chains is to immerse them in gasoline in a large mouthed container and shake. After 2 minutes the chains come out like new, leave the container open and let the gasoline evaporate, away from any fire. Wipe the chains and hang them to dry before reapplying lubricant.
Next, both Cher and I’s rear hubs were having issues which both started right around 4,000 km. Mine was making a grinding and clicking noise while Cher’s cassette came loose and could not be tightened. I took an entire day disassembling and cleaning them to see if I could locate the problem.
Mine had some sand in the pawls which caused the clicking.
Cher’s cassette body was shorn off at the top, while mine was showing similar wear. 9 speed Capreo hubs have 2 sprockets, gears 8 and 9, (the smallest or hardest gears), which do not attach directly to the splines on the cassette body. Sprocket 7, presses down on the rest of the sprockets to provide tension to keep them in place. However, this sprocket had shorn off the splines and when tightened was slipping onto the top of the cassette body and therefore no longer keeping tension on sprockets 1 to 6, even though 7, 8 and 9 were locked down.
I carefully reassembled the cassette and found that it is quite easy to misalign the 7th sprocket and have hypothesized that it was misaligned on both trikes which is what caused both trikes to have similar problems at the same time.
The next day we went into Chiang Mai to see if a local bike shop could fix the problem. We quickly found out that no one was familiar with Capreo cassettes. One shop suggested adding spacers, which would have made the situation worse, and the others didn’t have the necessary tools to remove the lockring.
I had to contact ICE and sent videos and pictures of the wear and after agreeing that the problem was the cassette body, they agreed to send us two new ones and a new lockring spanner, (which I stripped trying to tighten Cher’s hub) for free! We received the tracking update which listed the parts as “warranty replacement,” although the never did say whether this was an assembly error or a part failure. I’m guessing the former since I couldn’t find any similar problems after a great many hours of internet research. A week later the parts arrived and I quickly removed and replaced the old parts and after a couple of test drives, everything is running smooth. It will take a few days on the road, fully loaded before we can cycle without keeping a cautious ear out for any suspicious noises, so for now we are cautiously optimistic.
Despite this small issue I would still recommend ICE trikes, because this is the kind of customer service that inspires confidence on an extended trip. Breaking the spanner was clearly my fault but they sent a new one anyway and we weren’t even charged for international FedEx shipping. While investigating the cause we regularly corresponded with Patrick Selwood, ICE’s engineer, who answered my multiple lengthy e-mails immediately. As for the trikes and the other components, they have held up wonderfully and I have confidence that they will do so for the remainder of the trip.
To rekindle our affection for our trikes we spent one more day completely cleaning and re-greasing our trikes. Even though they will be dirty again, cleaning is a great way to find any areas of wear or loose nuts or bolts. Not only is it satisfying to look at a clean machine gleaming in the sun, in my mind it feels faster and sometimes perception is more important than reality.