mirage drive GT upgrade ... YES!

I got a chance to try out the GT upgrade today. This was my first time on the water in many months, I was mostly playing around with my new sail (lots of fun, btw), and was only out for a couple of hours.

Without a side-by-side and longer-term comparison, it's hard to say whether the GT drive actually requires less pedaling effort. But, I can say that the upgraded drive is incredibly quiet and smooth, and for those reasons alone, it was well worth it to me.

I got a chance to put 6-7 miles on my GT upgrade today.  It's much smoother and peddles just a little easier.  The bearings are a joke though.  I put one the sprockets on backwards and when I got it back on the right direction some of the "pencil lead" bearing pieces broke so one of my sprockets is an old one.  Im glad I bought the upgrade, but Hobie needs to step up and quit using cheap ass parts especially when they charge so much for so little.

I was worried about the bearings. I am going to wait a year to see how the new drive holds up.

I think Ski Pro Jerry had a good idea when he suggested drilling out enough space to insert a SS cartridge bearing in the mirage drive. The pre 2015 parts don't have enough material to make this work but the new GT drive does. If problems develop with those plastic needle bearings a cartridge bearing might be a viable improved alternative.

I put one the sprockets on backwards and when I got it back on the right direction some of the "pencil lead" bearing pieces broke so one of my sprockets is an old one.  Im glad I bought the upgrade, but Hobie needs to step up and quit using cheap ass parts especially when they charge so much for so little.

Any idea what those bearings are made of? They don't feel like a standard plastic to me. Pencil lead is a very good description---when installing, I was wondering if there might actually be some graphite in them...