Covid lockdown made me try couple of things. One of the biggest (positive) surprises was test of an “oil additive” for Alfine hub.
So, a while ago I swapped (actually during first service) on my Alfine hub to Automatic Transmission Fluid (Castrol – £9.99) instead of expensive “you-must-be-fuckin-kidding-me” Shimano oil (£69). At the moment my hub milage is around 30000 km, and I can confirm, that I never had any issues with that solution. On each service I inspect the internals, and it all looks like new.
If you riding geared hub, you must know that the biggest difference, comparing with normal drivetrain, is internal friction. You can spin pedals backwards by hand and you’ll see the difference, so I’ve been looking for a solution to make the ride easier for a while.
A bit of diversion. Some time ago I joined dark side. I bought old 600cc Yamaha motorbike. I spent 500 quid on the bike, so as you expect, was plenty of wrenching at first (I think I put around 40h), to get the bike to useable state. A bit of story itself, but in process of doing it, I’ve been watching plenty of how to’s on youtube, and I discovered this guy – Allen Millyard. I must say, my first reaction was OMFG! The guy for example is adding two extra cylinders to Kawasaki bike making custom 6 cylinder engine, customizing crankshaft, customizing crank case, you name it. All in his garage converted to workshop. Amazing guy. So, Mr Millyard is using stuff called ZX1. It’s an oil additive, made my British company with the same name – zx1. It’s extremely hard to convince me to all mambo-jumbo-magic oil additives. I never used them, as almost all of them doing absolutely nothing to the engine. Similar way as taking diet supplements. Just absolute bollox in my humble opinion… Yeah, you guessed. I bought that stuff ;-). Mostly to test it on motorbike, but I’m quite reluctant to put into engine oil. The motorbike has “wet clutch”, which means the same oil is used to lubricate the clutch and the engine. That might be a bit of a disaster, as clutch might slip. In the end, I tested it only adding to fuel. Nothing spectacular happened, apart from subjectively easier start (but I need to confirm that and do some miles on it).
Anyway, let’s get back to bicycles. (by the way, Mr Millyard making bicycles as well! check it out). I decided to put it inside my Alfine hub. So again, I didn’t use any scientific method to test it, but subjective feeling is that hub is running extremely efficient now. When pedals spined backwards they spinning effortlessly (almost like on my Willier with ceramic bearings inside BB and jockey wheels). So that’s the feelings and thoughts after first ride. Before you rush to buy it wait for some more tests. For example I discovered when zx1 is left outside (contact with air), it became milky, almost like brake fluid. Alfine hub is not by any means sealed system, but might be “sealed enough” to use it. My plan is put some miles and then test it again. So far all looks ok to me. Stay tunned.
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