[JayB]

Many of you will have ridden on or near rear tandem hubs which make noise - whine, buzz, etc. Can anyone give me some advice about which of these rear hubs tend to annoying sonic emissions? Phil Wood? Chris King? White Industries? Shimano tandem? Hugi? Hadley?

[The BikeForums Team]

This is an archived thread, you can find the full version of this thread, with images, links and more content here.

Ready to buy? Check out these two online bike stores:
- http://www.nashbar.com (you can find the latest bike nashbar coupons in this thread)
- http://www.performancebike.com (you can find the latest performance bike coupons in this thread)

Cya on the forums,
- The BikeForums Team
- http://www.bikeforums.net

[TandemGeek]

Most distinctive are the Chris Kings with their "killer bee" buzz... Routine maintenance and lubrication with Chris King's lube can minimize the buzz.

Phil Woods can also get your attention, particularly on newer models where stronger springs were used. However, it's a more conventional pawl/ratchet sound. Again, routine cleaning and relubrication -- I use Phil Wood's green waterproof grease, no thinning -- will make them whisper quiet. I believe Phil Wood still thins their waterproof grease with some of their tennacious oil as the OEM lube.

White Ind., Shimano, and Hadley all sound pretty normal to me. We've got the White's on one of our road tandems and I've had Shimano's HF07 & HF08's on prior machines. Hugi's used to go BANG but they've purporedly redesigned the entire engagement mechanism such that they are no longer prone to failure and fall into the normal sounding hub grouping.

[zonatandem]

Have Chris King hubs on our Zona tandem. We've given it the nickname 'Hummer' for the distinctive 'hummmm' sound while coasting. Does not bother us or harm performance in any way.