well I was just looking at my old seals, and you can clearly see that the one out of the right side that accompanied the bad bearing is totally worn out, the lip is worn flat. And the seal for the other side still can a sharp lip, hardly worn at all. Water is what took this bearing out, which got in thru the worn seal.

But here is the kicker - the aluminum brake hub on the left side has a hardened steel ring pressed onto it for where the seal rides, and the old steel sprocket hub does too, but this new aluminum sprocket hub does not. The aluminum surface naturally has scored rings all the way around it, the same grit that took out the seal has taken its toll on the sprocket hub too. Now its very typical to see scored lines around the surface a seal rides, no way to avoid it no matter what the metal is made of, but this is a bit excessive - especially since the hub is only 1 year old. It really pisses me off, because Bomb new better on the earlier models but then made cutbacks to lower cost, and this was definitely not one of the places a cut should have been made.