does anyone know what brand of bearings he uses. it seems to me like low quality bearings are the major issue here. the bearings were probably not designed to have downward force applied to them. most bearings of that type are meant for rotational forces only. the bearings outer shell may be being forced down into the balls, pushing the seal and spacer out the side.
I don’t know what kind of bearings they are, but Florian said he has always been using exactly the same kind for all of his hubs. So maybe these particular ones happen to have some material defects. Because most of the hubs seem to work fine.
Yeah…in this case, less than a week and £850.00 of preparedness…
http://www.unicycle.uk.com/Shop/shopdisplayproducts.asp?Search=Yes
Ouch! Commiserations capuni
So am I the first one actually sending the hub back to Switzerland? I’m going to send it today. It’ll cost me an arm and a leg, and I’ll have to find a box to fit around my 26" wheel… And then I’m not sure about insuring it and customs etc. Anyways, I hope it will all go well. Florian said he was going to pay me back for shipping costs.
Wow! The ultimate 10 speed GUni
Well, if two speeds is not enough how about this 
:
Anyone own up to this ingenious device?
Hey, I finally got my wheel back on the 1. of April. The bearings have been replaced and seem to stay where they’re supposed to be. So much for the good news.
The bad news is, yesterday I upded badly when speeding along in high gear downhill. What happened was that the left crank had apparently come loose. But without any signs beforehand. So of course I landed on my backside with a strong impact, resulting in some annoying but not serious injuries on my elbows and bum. I guess my backpack saved my back from getting hurt. The car behind me was able to stop in time, so it didn’t hit me either. So I got up slowly and kind of wondered how severe my injuries were.
I then took the shifting button off in order to be able to take the crank off for closer inspection. Then I saw that the crank had bent the rod where the button mounts to very badly. No way to fix that without getting that rod replaced. Damn, this really sucks. And how could the crank come loose so easily and quickly? I installed it with locktight blue and torked it up very strongly with a simple hex wrench. The cranks don’t ever loosen on the moment hubs when I install them that way, so what’s wrong here? I wonder if the newer longer axles would be an improvement that can allow a better connection between cranks and axle. In that case I would think I should get one of those as a replacement, shouldn’t I?
The thing about cranks coming loose on a geared hub versus an ungeared one is, that it might be hard to distinguish between the usual play in the hub and a loose crank, especially when cruising along on a slight downhill, where you don’t put a lot of pressure on the cranks.
Damn, this is pretty dangerous stuff if it doesn’t stay connected. How am I supposed to trust this hub again? Has anybody else experienced this?
Wow yeah that is some bad news, but it sounded like you were really excited to get your hub back and jumped into riding without taking the necessary precautions.
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You shouldn’t tighten the bolts with a simple hex wrench…that can’t provide enough torque.
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Even with a torque wrench it will take a few rides for the cranks to go in place. When I put new cranks on my kh/schlumpf, I always leave the buttons off and ride it in high gear for a short amount of time, tighten, ride a mile, tighten, ride a few miles, tighten…until I am sure the cranks are in place, and then I put the buttons on.
Either way, that is a shame that you will have to ship the hub back again. It is worth it, I can’t imagine riding ungeared.
What I don’t understand is, that the regular moment hub doesn’t have these issues with KH cranks, so isn’t this a major flaw that should be eliminated with yet another change in the design? I mean, this really must not happen, people could be hurt very badly like this. And who is going to pay for them if they can no longer do their jobs? Like playing their instrument in my case. I think this is clearly something that needs to be improved very quickly. I mean, how am I supposed to trust this same hub again? As I said, there was not the slightest sign of loosening of the crank.
this is strange, such good hub should not have problem. costs thousands to buy but still problem. maybe kris must do more careful prototype in future for longer.
if K1 does this hub at same price and quality i think everyone will HATE on koxx and blame but just because is KH does not mean bad product is OK…
just my thought
Thats is so true
The thing about cranks coming loose on a geared hub versus an ungeared one is, that it might be hard to distinguish between the usual play in the hub and a loose crank, especially when cruising along on a slight downhill, where you don’t put a lot of pressure on the cranks.
Damn, this is pretty dangerous stuff if it doesn’t stay connected. How am I supposed to trust this hub again? Has anybody else experienced this?
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OOPs - I replied with the quote only the first time. I don’t have a schlumph hub (but would like to get one). Concerning cranks coming loose though I think you should always be careful to watch crank tightness. I’ve seen them come loose on nearly every type of vehicle that has cranks and one time or another. You just have to pay attention to them as a regular maintenance routine. Regular checks after first mounting them is important.
Hey munirocks,
That’s a total bummer! siafirede (James) covered the basics – it seems that everyone with the KH hub has had the cranks come loose. I constantly had a problem with the right crank getting loose – I would look down and see how far in the button was looking – when it looked a little further “in” and was harder to shift when the crank was coming loose.
You definitely have to use a torque wrench on it; I don’t torque it as high as florian says to, since it tends to deform the alumn cranks and force them too close to the frame (NOTE: that should be fixed on the latest generation with the longer ISIS hubs).
As James said, geared unicycling is the way to go. It is no longer the future of unicycling; it has come to the present.
I rode my KH36 guni about 22 miles today; a good amount of up/downhill in 2 hours. Louise and I did the same ride last weekend on the guni 24s in 2 hours 30 mins. Not too much of a time difference, but I definitely preferred the geared 36 for the road ride.
corbin
Thanks for your input, guys. Maybe the initial tightening wasn’t quite enough then. But I really tightened it as much as I could with my wrench. A normal crank and hub combo wouldn’t have had a chance to come loose. Somebody explained to me yesterday, that one has to degrease the ISIS threads meticulously before applying the locktight. Kind of a hard thing to do on the Schlumpf, so maybe I didn’t clean it enough…
What was really weird about this incident was that it didn’t seem to loosen gradually, so there would have been a chance to notice and tighten it again. But it just went from tight to loose in a split second… No chance to stop and fix it.
I would like to agree to geared unicycling being the present now. But my bad experiences make me doubtful about it… It seems to involve much greater risks than I thought it did. If something on that hub fails at high speeds or in serious mountains, it could end very badly, it seems.
lol… KH-Onza crank my friend has broke 6 arms (3 pair) and did Joe Hodges break about 10 arms total or more? and the KH Schlumpf hub … :(… also the KH titan welded hub… some crack, others have some small bearing fit tolerance issue… when you spend much money on these parts you expect them to be perfect, especially from KH… you spend 500 dollar or 2000 dollar on the TI hub or KH SCHLUMPF hub and if there is ANY problem it is not acceptale no way!! But everyone too proud/scared to admit KH product sometime have TERRIBLE problem.
i always think is so unfair people are nasty to K1 and monty for release products that sometime fail. its very few infact. But whenever Kris component break like crazy like my example no one complain because it is kris. it is very biased !! i love my KH trial uni but i think people need to stop bumming Kris and his product just because he is a pioneer and good guy. If expensive and boasted ‘high quality’ product fails then it is unacceptable no matter which brand.
people have zero tolerance for K1 and Monty but they never blame KH brand even though i think in the past 5 year, i have heard more KH thing breaking, and many of them for stupid reason
Just my thought!
I think people do complain about KH things that break in a way that is unpredictable too. I’ve seen a lot of posts like that, although maybe they are fewer than the complaints about koxx stuff, I don’t know. But it might have to do with a better warranty service, so if you break something it will most likely be replaced for free. Plus unlike Koxx Kris is actually listening to his customers and answering most of their questions on these forums. And he usually is very eager to improve and complement all of his products when the necessity arises.
It seems to me that you yourself are actually somewhat biased towards Koxx 
Well, the thing is, geared unicycle hubs are new, and they are working out the kinks. They have improved the design a few times since they have been out. Kris and Florian are great about that. I think people are more accepting to Kris because he does a great job of improving defects. Case in point are some of the latest set of improvements: stronger, reinforced frames (right at where people were breaking them), reinforced seat posts, reinforced and stronger seats (which was expensive to do, as it required creating a new mold). The KH hub also now has longer axles, and closer testing of the bearings.
corbin
For what it is worth, I have put quite a lot of miles on my geared 36 and I haven’t had to tighten the cranks in the last 250 miles. I don’t use loctite and I don’t use a torque wrench. I use a socket wrench and a hex adapter and do it by feel (and put a lot less than the required torque - I know this from past experience with the torque on the hub). Once your cranks get set…they don’t get loose.
Cranks always come loose for me when I put them on any hub, after the first 10 miles of retightening every mile or two, they get set. For the geared hub it takes a little bit longer for the cranks to get set, but I am quite happy with the hub so far.
I just took my geared 36 for a 30 mile ride on a mountain road and it is so nice having a low and high gear, I went much faster and my muscles hurt a lot less than my friend with a ungeaerd 36er with 125s. He had a harder time going up (since I have more torque with 150s in low gear) and a harder time going down.
That sounds reassuring. So maybe if I just replace that rod and then pay some more attention to the tightening I’ll be good to go again? Does anybody know if it would be possible or how much of an effort it would be to remove that rod myself and either try to bend it back (probably wouldn’t work) or try and get a replacement and install that? Would I have to open the entire hub and take it all apart for that? If so I won’t do it, obviously. If this thing weren’t so f*%#ing expensive I would have opened it already and inspected it closely. Does anybody know much about the hub internals? I found this picture via google image search. It seems as if the threaded rod isn’t installed on that hub. So maybe that’s an easy thing to remove?
I have, Richard Lewis did exactly the same thing on my 24" Schlumpf. I’d ridden it a couple of times but not torqued it correctly or re-tightened the hub after the previous rides. One crank came off and was hanging by the shifting arm, which was bent.
You’ll have to arrange to send it back to Schlumpf, as opening the hub will void the warranty. UDC Roger suggested to Florian he replace mine but understandably would not allow it.
Buy a torque wrench for it’s return. Be meticulous in your maintenance on the first few rides!
I hope it’s sorted soon for you…