Still More Grace
I called a Greenspeed dealer in Virginia, who gave me the number of Jerome Heddinger, Greenspeed's North American representative.
The result: because the bike shop in Lexington has no experience with the DualDrive hub, and thus wouldn't necessarily be adept at swapping the guts of the old hub for the guts of the new hub,* Jerome is sending me a new wheel with a new DualDrive hub. It'll even have a new cassette on it, which I can swap for the old cassette or not, my choice. All I have to do is put my old tire on the new rim and put the wheel on the trike. Jerome assured me that he's got trikes and tandems in service with DualDrives that have 10,000 miles on them, and that SRAM's "not spec'd for touring" is just a cop-out. I may have just gotten a bum hub. Touring tandems, for example, carry much more weight than I've got on my trike.
I am humbled and astounded by this turn of events. Greenspeed is a company that stands behind their products, even if their suppliers won't stand behind theirs. Rare, and wonderful.
Now, I'm going to go bask in my relief and in the support of a benevolent universe.
*LATER:
Paul Sims, Greenspeed's Production, Tech, R&D and Web Guy, wrote back to say,
The Dual Drive, like any other component, isn't bulletproof. It is fairly reliable though, with only a few of them ever having the problem you described. We have used them on our tandems for years, so loading isn't the problem. Many people are scared by an internally geared hub and are reluctant to crack it open. The fact that it can be disassembled so easily is a testament to its construction. The usual remedy is to just replace the hub center, this can be done almost as quick as changing a tire :-) I've read that Jerome has sent you another wheel, so this will obviously get you out of trouble. For what it's worth, the hub center comes out by removing the wheel from the trike, face the right hand side (sprocket side) down and undo the left hand jam nut and cone. Once the cone is removed you just lift the hub shell off the insides, that easy :-) Hopefully the rest of your trip is uneventful of trike mishaps, hope you have a good tour!
Which sounds like something I could do with a cone wrench...makes the whole "new wheel" thing a bit of overkill, and me feel kinda dumb. That's what happens when you give in to the Big Panic, I guess.
But I don't have a cone wrench; I'd have to go back to the shop in Lexington for that. And I don't want to impose too much on Bernie, so if I can just swap the wheel out here in the motel room, I should be good to go.
Like I said, though: one way or the other, the problem will be resolved, and I'll be underway soon. If this had to happen anywhere, it's best that it happened here...Berea looks like an interesting town, and unlike most Econo Lodges, this one is actually close to the town center.
So...I'll chill.
