I had the same concern and posted the question on the auction format and did not recieve a reply.
I pray it isn’t so! I really want a chance to ride one of those, and if you win the auction, I may get a chance! Godspeed, Mike!!! Also, do you plan on having this replace your coker?
I hope you won’t be too disappointed when I lose. I just don’t have the $$$ to pay what I’m sure this will go for. Maybe someone else from the extended bay area will win it.
…and nothing could replace my Hunter36 (which I don’t think you’ve seen yet).
Except in my case, a Hunter 29" x 2 
Good luck on the auction Mike (you’re out of control!!!)
- Frank
Hey, if it’s close, and your broke, I may be able to chip a little bit in:) . Also, you never win if you don’t expect to.
All of this is of course hard to say. The gears are very rugged. When done correctly the wear is expected to be in the sintered bronze oilite tophat bushings that run between the planet gears and the hardened dowel pins that are used as the axles for the planet gears. These will eventually become loose from wear but maybe not noticeably. The dowel pins are pressed into a planet cage that supports them from both sides. They are peened in place so they wont slip. The one I made that failed used an entirely different planet gear support structure and had no bushings. That whole design was stupid.
The model Steve has is serviceable in that all the guts can be pulled and the bushings replaced if it is ever necessary. If he reworked the hub to spec, the bushings now in it are stock items available from McMaster Carr for about $0.45 each. The hub uses ten of them. The dowel pins would be hardened steel and could be reused.
The units I built by hand for uni.5 and Blue Shift don’t use the fancy tophat bushings. They use sintered bronze oilite bushings with brass thrust washers at the ends. The one I have on Blue Shift I ran in on a lathe at about 1000 rpm (very fast cranking speed) for a total time equivalent to 100 miles of riding. I have since ridden Blue Shift for 500 or 600 miles with no noticeable change in the performance. Blue Shift has also been seriously abused in many test rides with no degradation in performance. Oddly, it breaks spokes (3 so far) and the wheel doesn’t go out of true. The broken spokes have been replaced.
The hub Kris Holm has on a Coker was a Chinese prototype reworked by me and has the modifications that I think Steve made also. This is with 1/4"x1" hardened dowel pins, sintered bronze oilite tophat bushings but the original Chinese gears. I ran it in using a similar technique on a lathe. This is equivalent to riding a 24" wheel at 71 miles per hour for an hour and a half continuously or riding Kris’ geared Coker at 107 miles per hour. The hub gets warm like that but it certainly doesn’t seize.
Sorry that’s all I can tell you, Michael. Maybe Steve or Kris could add comments.
I have been using a geared Coker for to commute to work 5 days/week since it was built up about 6 weeks ago.
Total distance isn’t very large because it’s a short commute, average about 60km/week probably, so I’ve probably logged about 350 km so far.
So far the hub has been absolutely smooth with no discernable problems whatsoever. Very occasionally there’s a slight click when you crank hard up a hill, but that’s about it.
These hubs are awesome and I highly recommend bidding on this!
Kris Holm
Hey, some of us SF area riders could chip in on this and create a uni time-share.
Yes, I did tear the hub apart and rebuild it. It worked fine the way it was but I knew at the time I first assembled it that it wasn’t really “right”. I’m glad that I went ahead and fixed it because now it has all the correct parts that Harper originally spec’d and the backlash went from about .100" to .035" measured at the end of the 165mm cranks. Big improvement!
This also confirms that the hub is rebuildable without unlacing the wheel. After replacing the planet gear bushings and hardened pins, the hub was stiff and hard to turn. Like Harper, I set it up in a lathe to run it in but just the internal parts because the outer shell that contains the ring gear is still laced to the wheel and won’t come any where close to fitting in my little 9" lathe. The internal parts loosened fine but it was still a little stiff when completely assembled with the ring gear and outer shell.
Last night I took it for a ride (probably my last one on this uni) to see how quickly it would loosed up. When I started out there was virtually no backlast and even though it was still stiff feeling when the wheel was turned by hand, I really couldn’t tell any difference when riding it. But within a couple miles the hub was turning free just like normal. I guess the awesome power in my legs broke it in the same as turning it at 107 mph in a lathe does. Now when spinning the wheel by hand you can hear and feel a little gear noise (and the loose pedal bearings rattle because of it) but I couldn’t feel or hear anything while riding. It rode in both 26" and 39" modes just like before but with less backlash. It currently has about 6 miles on it since the rebuild.
The only catastrophic failure I can see happening is the axle breaking due to hopping or dropping … I don’t think it will stand up to any of that. As far as the internal parts, I suppose some day the top hat bushings could wear out and perhaps the gears too but it’s really designed for heavy duty use. That wear would only result in increased backlash. It would be ugly if a gear tooth ever broke off somehow and got in the teeth of the other gears …
I’m kind of sad to see it go now that the auction day is close. It really is a cool machine but I just don’t ride it enough. I have a nice 29’er with Big Apple to ride on pavement when the urge strikes but usually I’d rather ride a fat tire in the dirt. Someone who will put lots of miles on the geared hub uni should have it.
SH
I had intended to wait until a week after UNICON to end the auction but somehow misjudged UNICON by a week. I had intended to end the auction on Friday 6 August rather than Friday 30 July. I’m trying to get Gilby to change it but I don’t know if this is possible. The intent was to give UNICON attendees a chance to bid after returning. I have trouble reading calendars…and numbers…and big words.
Changing the auction by a week would be great. Hope Gilby will work with you on that. --chirokid–
A cyclist clocked me going 31 km/hr (19.3mph) on my geared Coker today. This was a relatively fast cruising speed, but you could go a lot faster than this if you really tried.
Definately whoever gets this one will have a lot of fun with it.
Kris
I clocked Ryan atkins at 38km/h on a Coker w/102’s.
Then I almost ran him over with my car when he wiped out.
Then the coker when flying into the woods about 20 meters away
Then the medic patching up his wounds laughed at him.
I’m trying to picture Ryan Atkins getting injured under any of those conditions and I’m not seeing it. Perhaps you ran over him after all? I’ve ridden with you and the road seems to be your secondary concern at best. Not that that’s a bad thing. We were going bowling after all. Priorities are priorities.
38 km/hr is impressive indeed. What is that in American? I calculate about $1.75.
catastrophic failure
The most likely catastrophic failure will be to the rider. I was plagued with fits of uncontrolled giggles for some time after my first cra- uh, ride… ya, ride- on Shifty.
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to move real-ly, real-ly fast over pavement without a seatbelt or cycle then this beast is for you. For a brief period, you’re actually moving so fast that you may consider the possibility of aerosurfing to effect your trajectory and lessen the force of impact.
While you’re employing those Quake-like reflexes, be sure to protect your mouse-hand so that you can still surf while you recover. 
–
Real-ly though, if you got the cash, buy this thang: for the casual cyclist, the size is right- geared up to be fast, but not hideously fast @ 39", yet small enough to fit into a car with a 26" wheel. Shifted down, you have a cycle small enough to easily perform most basic tricks. You can tell yourself that when you buy it, then talk yourself into lacing it to a Coker later. 
-Christopher
Actually, it’s closer to about 8 gallons. Oh, wait, we use ‘Imperial’ gallons, not US gallons. That would make it closer to 64 degrees celsius.
Wow that’s really fast.
It will be interesting to see how much faster you can go in the end on the geared Coker.
On the one hand the advantage is obvious, having a geared advantage. On the other you have a loss in power which means that it would be really hard to use short cranks- 102’s would have an effective length of 78mm, and longer cranks of course mean you can’t spin as fast. Also there is a loss of stability due to the play in the system that might reduce a rider’s confidence at super high rpm’s.
My guess is that the best times will be faster than a regular Coker but not 1.5 times faster, and the real advantage will be that you can cruise at 30kph without difficulty.
Kris
I have not heard from Gilby who may himself be in Japan so the auction WILL NOT be extended. It ends in 24 hours.
Re: catastrophic failure
Yes, I will come and duct tape your skin back on IF you win the bid and IF you ever fall off after a ride. You only fell once and seemed to enjoy it.
I know my way around the Jackson, MS airport now. Sophie and I can play with the baggage carousel again, too. I’ll remember that she will be searching my luggage for gifts next time.
There’s about 6 hours left in this auction. As I said before, IT WILL NOT BE EXTENDED.