I recently started to notice a rhythmic clicking sound coming from the rear of the bike, when coasting, several weeks ago. I ride an average of about 10 miles per day. This sound was intermittent, and occurred only when coasting, in addition to the sound of the freehub. Now, I noticed that at high speed on descents (~30mph) a similar sound begins to occur when coasting. It's louder, presumably because there's more force at high speed. It sounds to me like a sticky pawl? But I'm not sure how to diagnose that myself.
I asked at two local shops, who said the wheel is fairly generic and it's probably not cost effective to service the hub, versus replacing the wheel down the line when it actually fails. I'm more concerned about the mode of failure, though - is my hub at all likely to seize up at high speed and send me skidding? Or something like that? Should I insist on servicing it, before it gets any worse?
The bike is a Surly Straggler Apex 700c from 2021, which has SRAM Apex 1x11 drivetrain, the hub is all black and does not have any apparent brand mark. The bike has about 2.5k miles from the past year, riding through four seasons New England commute, so it's had lots of wet and salt and not that frequent cleaning.