u/dankbIazer

Having a very strange issue with the freehub on my 2005 mavic deemax rear wheel.

When being ridden at certain speeds the freehub seems to stop ratcheting/ freewheeling normally and makes a grating sound, this causes my chain to lose tension and usually flings my chain off at the same time. The freehub does re engage ok if the chain hasn’t come off, but obviously this makes freewheeling a pain and descents a nightmare of constant chain fiddling or riding like a fixed keeping the freehub engaged.

you can see in the other videos that the bearings are pretty sweet and it even freewheels great upside down/ not being ridden ( i dont have a stand to test upright sorry), which makes this even more confusing to me.

The hub is a Mavic Deemax and I dont have the tools to open it up, but i did drip thin oil down through the cracks of the freehub and that seemed to fix it for a little while, but the problem has came back only after 2 decent length rides. It was in hot, dry storage for 10+ years, so my thinking is to find a bike shop with the right tools and gife the freehub a lube? I’m determined to fix it as these wheels are rare nowadays, and trying to get a new freehub would be costly.

What do you think? Has anyone ever encountered this before and might know the diagnosis?

Cheers!

My 1990 Claud Butler Crape Wrath 26” ATB Dinger.

This is my main commuter / touring bike I’ve had now for a year or so. Got the frame for £40 and built up from scratch, since the frame its self was cheap I’ve done a few experiments like squishing the chainstays to fit 2.2” racekings, and ground off a few things that were in my way.

Heavily Ron’s inspired as you can see. I’ve dropped a bit of cash on the nice bits but the soul of the bike is pretty ratty. This kind of setup works good for me at 6”4, as retro mountain bikes are notoriously hard to find in a large size, so I had to just make this work.

It’s a little heavy but a blast to ride, especially as a cruiser ATB like it is now. I think these things were top of the line for Claud Butler at the time, and for 1990 it comes with some nice features like vertical dropouts and a 1 1/8” headset, which let me swap to a nicer fork with some big rake. It’s nice to have an old UK Handmade bike too.

Specs:

Frame - 1990 Claud Butler Cape Wrath
Fork - Thorn Raven I think?
Wheels - Spa cycles handbuilt touring : Deore hubs, Sapim spokes and Ryde sputnik rims
Tyres - Continental RaceKing 26” x 2.2”
Cranks - White industries
Pedals - MKS Gordito
Seapost - Thomson
Saddle - Charge Spoon
Bars - Crust x Rons Ortho
FD - Shimano XT thingy
RD - XTR M952… yeaah baby
Stem - ControlTech
Levers - dunno, something shiny and shimano
Shifters - Suntour XC Pro thumbies
Brakes - LX Dual Pivots
Oury Grips
And a big boy pelago front rack…

Lemme know what u think…