My freehub seized at the end of a long ride the other week – leaving me riding what was a pretty dicey fixed wheel.

It’s a tesla evo – I bought the wheels second hand and have been riding them for a few years – I just rebuilt them into a set of B+ wheels recently.

I stripped it down, and it is pretty obvious what has happened:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/E5KB4B]Untitled[/url] by Soph and Ian, on Flickr

A tooth had come off the ratchet and had jammed behind a pawl (there are 5 or 6 pawls), keeping the wheel engaged.

I removed the broken tooth – all the pawls are fine, no other damage. Reassembled and it feels fine. I reckon it’ll be fine for a while – most of the time all five pawls will be engaged (there are 72 PoEs), and at the worse, four will be? Or am I going to die a horrible death? Freehub bodies are £50, so not the end of the world, but I’ve been spending a bit too much on bikes recently…