Yearly dues

So after I wrote the One year on post I decided to pull apart the X-RD3 rear hub as I had the wheels off to change the tyres from the Schwalbe Delta Cruisers to some Schwalbe Marathons which I bought, I'd had one too many punctures on the Delta cruisers.  It also gave me a chance to see how the tyre liners I installed were doing, seeing as they let one bit of glass through.

I decided to have a better look at the gash in the rear tyre a bit more closely, I'd been watching it for the past week or two and only realised that the cut had made it through the tread and carcass and that the inner tube was actually showing!  This was the main reason I decided to retire these tyres.  As you can see in the pics above the cut made it through the tyre and the tyre liner.  Must have been a big, nasty chunk of glass, rock or something.

Inside the tyre liner you can see all the black spots which were made by road grime getting through holes in the tyre...  I only suffered one puncture whilst the liner was in place for the past few months.  Most of the black patches haven't been penetrated through so the tyre liner actually prevented quite a few sharps from puncturing the inner tube.

However, these two black spots had pretty big gashes in them.  I think I made the right choice in changing tyres, the Delta cruisers just aren't tough enough.  Hopefully I'll have better luck with the Marathons.  I ordered the older HS368 model Marathons, these are the normal versions not the Plus versions so they are a fair bit lighter, thinner and more supple.  I did a bit of research on the differences between the Plus and non-Plus versions and many people have complained about the dead, hard feel of the plus model as well as the weight.  Fingers crossed the non-Plus models are fine, they were also about half the price.

I was hoping to reuse the tyre liners, the front one came out in one piece (with no black spots either) however the rear one ripped in two, you can see how many holes were in the tyres from the amount of black spots...

Now onto the hub, I'd had an intermittent problem with the pawls not quite catching on in middle gear, and I thought I might just tear it down anyway to have a look.  Everything looked pretty good, the low gear pawl I replaced looked fine, all the pinions, shaft and gear ring teeth all looked good as well.  However on closer inspection the driver pawls were chipped on the edges.

The corresponding dogs on the inside of the gear ring were also worn which you can see above; I may have missed this when I was building it originally and I bet this is what caused the slipping problem in middle gear as all the drive is going through these pawls.  Ah well, I did get the hub for really cheap and it looks like it was quite well used when I got it.  I've ordered a new gear ring and complete driver assembly, for some reason you can't get the driver pawls separately, they are different from all the other pawls as well.   That's all for now until I get the parts in the mail, until then the Superbe is temporarily off the road and I'll have to ride Mr Ramen to work instead.