Lots of people do through SCSCycles, call robin on 01278441522 he’ll explain.

Chaps, i put this Q to Rohloff, here is their reply;

a defect or broken bearing is pretty much unheard of with the SPEEDHUB because the oil bath within the gear unit constantly feeds the bearings with enough lubricant to carry out their job correctly for (to date) an infinite amount of time. We have not yet had to replace a single hub shell/cap bearing due to a defect.

The bearings of the SPEEDHUB are industrial, sealed bearings. As such they consist of 3 parts:- an outer ring, an inner ring and the ball bearings themselves. The completed bearing MUST have a certain amount of play between the inner and outer rings so that the bearings can move and allow the rings to rotate. The “problem” of sideways movement is simply this completely normal play between the two rings. This tolerance of play is near impossible to control during the manufacturing process and therefore we time-consumingly check the bearings here (every single one) before building them into the SPEEDHUB.

The general idea that play in bearings means that they are broken is simply rubbish! Without play in bearings, they would either not work or have such an enormous efficiency loss due to this extra friction that the system using the bearings would be rendered useless.

The problem tends to be that the average cyclist simply measures the amount of play at the rim/tyre as it wobbles within the frame. This is not a fair test for various reasons.
Firstly, the wheel is a lever where the bearing sits at the pivotal point. The larger the wheel diameter (the lever), the further away from the pivot you go. Therefore the required amount of force needed to “wobble” the wheel is reduced whilst the noticeable amount of play increases the further away from the pivot that the wheel is “wobbled”.
This means therefore that play in a 28″ wheel is much easily more noticeable than the exact same amount of play within a 26″ or 20″ or 18″
wheel.

Secondly, the spoke tension plays a huge roll in the effect of “wheel wobble”. If the spokes are too loose, how can the customer be sure that he is feeling bearing play and not play in the entire wheel due to insufficient spoke tension?
Clearly not a fair test of play.

Due to the fact that the bearing in the hub shell (the sprocket side) is not fixed but rather floating, a defect or worn bearing will let itself be known if it is possible to push the hub shell to the left and to the right along the axle. Axial play here should not be felt.