Hi Mathijs, yes if we chatted on my website then it was me because there is only me at Strida Canada!
I always refer to the Strida as low maintenance and not zero maintenance and I think one of the most important parts of the low maintenance is keeping it clean.
From my experience what compounds the gearbox issue is Sturmey Archer’s policy of repairing the gearbox and not replacing it. When the gearbox was first released this made sense because they may have wanted to know what internal part was failing but after three years this policy for me no longer makes sense. This is because I have experienced a much higher rate of gearbox failure with repaired units than new units. Possibly this may have been what happened with your Belgium friend Chris, the original gearbox fails, it gets repaired it fails again, it gets repaired and it fails again. Or the gearbox gets replaced with another repaired and not new gearbox. Si it ca happen, one gearbox three failures, not three different gearbox failures.
I have one customer who this has happened to, luckily this person is my son in law! I have also received a repaired gearbox from Sturmey Archer that did not work from day one!
All the Sturmey Archer KS3 gearboxes have a serial number on the end and this S/N can be traced by Strida.
Cheers, Bill