After Saturday’s freehub failure on the El Mariachi Ti I figured I should check up on the freehub in the fatbike. It’s been behaving fine, but as I last lubed it 2+ years ago (and replacement is very expensive) I wanted to be sure everything was fine.
A couple years back Salsa released the video Winterizing The Mukluk Hub in response to too heavy of grease for winter use having been installed by the factory in the freehubs. This would apparently freeze up, cause the pawls to only partially engage, and then break. Pawls aren’t available standalone, so people were left buying replacement freehubs at ~$90/each. Replacing the grease with something lighter was a very good proactive measure, so as soon as I became aware of this (after my first winter of riding the fatbike, but a light winter) I did so with Buzzy’s Slick Honey.
This hub is extremely easy to disassemble, so checking up on the freehub takes little more than removing the wheel, pulling off an endcap, and unscrewing another cap before pulling the freehub off. The cassette doesn’t even have to be removed, although I did so because makes cleaning the freehub itself much easier.
The Slick Honey held up for around 1500 miles, 200+ hours, and an incredibly wide range of conditions. I believe that bike has been ridden in temperatures ranging from 0°F to just over 100°F. Even today, despite being a bit discolored, it still had its familiar texture and was lubricating the pawls as it should. Regardless, I cleaned out the ratchet mechanism and heavily lubricated it before everything went back together. Here’s to another couple of years!