So I’ve ridden my priority Apollo with the alfine 11 speed hub and belt drive for several years. The only real maintenance I’ve done is change the oil in the rear hub once.
Several days ago I was on a ride and all of a sudden I couldn’t pedal any more, and there was a clunking sound.
Walked it home, and now I’m trying to troubleshoot what went wrong. As I put very little pressure on the pedals, it will stop on me every so often.
My first thought was bottom bracket went bad, but I’ve never had an internal hub so I’m concerned it’s something in there? Can anyone smarter than me diagnose from just a video?
Thanks!
Alfine 11 belt drive started acting up
byu/nerbesss inbikewrench
by nerbesss
5 Comments
what happens if you pedal backwards? it might be the freewheel that needs to be serviced.
Whats several years?
>To maintain the product in good working order, oil should be changed after the first 1,000 km from start of use of the product, and once every year thereafter (after every 2,000 km if bicycle is ridden frequently).
Im not 100% clear from your description what happened, if the pawls are engaging now but you’ve got grinding then that might be BB. If you still have engagement issues (pedals dont move the wheels) the hub could have drained (known to happen) or be full of metal filings and gunk.
You need to eliminate variables.
Remove the belt, then turn your cranks.
If it feels fine, check the hub.
Alignment and belt tension issues. Potentially a worn out belt.
The belt drive system relies on a very stiff and well aligned gear setup not not drop the belt along with proper tension.
Since it doesn’t seem to skip in the rear (Severe misalignment) and doesn’t skip with/against the pedalstroke (wobbly BB), its likely a tension+ slight misalignment due to wear and age.
When’s the last time you got the hub dipped/ serviced? That one time you mentioned? You should be getting the hub / gears serviced once a year or every 1500 miles. You make be on replacement of the internals territory if a service can’t fix the problem. The skipping could be from a lot of lack of servicing it issues unfortunately most are not cheap fixes. Fingers crossed an oil bath is all it needs.
Side note. Fixing these/ swapping parts is very straightforward it is just time and space consuming that’s why it’s expensive