RocThrower

Is it normal for new Novatec hubs to be totally silent when not pedaling? I just got a new fat bike with 12 speed SLX and Novatec hubs, and the freehub does not make any noise when I'm not pedaling. I liked it quite a bit actually, but on yesterday's ride, I started having issues with the free hub not engaging. It felt like I dropped my chain and the cranks would spin out, and then they would engage and I'd continue on. It was around 10° F, so my first thought is the cold is gumming up the lube and preventing the pawls from engaging, but I have also never run across a hub this quite. I'm just wondering if this 'silence' is normal, or if this is a result of too much/too thick lube keeping things quiet.

Iride01 

I don't know about Novatec, but in general I prefer freehubs and freewheels that are silent. All I can say is some are and some aren't.

If nothing else is going on and all is working correctly then I wouldn't worry. But in low temps, you will have more issues with lubes being too congealed and not letting the internals of the free hub or freewheel work correctly. I'd try lighter to no lube on the pawls if I knew enough to disassemble and get in there and do something about it.

dsaul

The reason its silent is definitely the same reason that it fails to engage in cold weather. The freehub probably has grease in it, which makes it quieter, but that grease will cause problems in the cold. It's easy to remove the freehub and wipe out some of the grease. All of the Novatec hubs I own have freehubs that pull off just by removing the axle end cap on the drive side.

rosefarts

Their front hubs are.

Crankycrank

I would suggest since this is a new bike that you take it back to the shop you bought it from before doing any work on the hub. If something is broken you may cancel out any warranty by admitting you tried to fix it yourself. If they say it's fine and just the cold weather is the issue you can flush out whatever lube is in there and replace it with some less viscous lube which should cure the problem. I've seen Lubriplate Mag1 grease mentioned in a few forums/articles for freezing conditions. Not the only solution and I have never tried it myself.

RocThrower

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I do recall adding grease to a freehub once which quieted it down, but was too thick for everything to engage properly. I'm thinking new hub/lube and cold weather is the culprit. Once the bike is in the basement where it's warmer, and I can't reproduce the problem, it always engages. Still pretty quiet, but I can hear the pawls clicking ever so faintly. I think I'm going to flush out the factory lube and replace with some Phil's. The bike shop I got the bike from is a couple states away (hard finding bikes in Covid era), so if the problem still persists, I'll run it by my LBS.

*UPDATE*. I removed the freehub to find that the pawls and ratchet were packed with grease, which certainly was the issue. Degreased and re-lubed and everything is good. The hub makes the familiar clicking sound again and I haven't experienced anymore engagement issues.