There were a couple of neat little doodads in the Woodman booth at Interbike last week, both of which deserve a little recognition. The first is the Taiwanese company’s new Centerlock disc brake adapter, which is elegant in its simplicity. When converting from a splined disc interface to the IS 6-bolt, first one slides the black ring onto the hub, followed by the rotor itself. The red star-shaped lockring is then tighened by hand. The star ring’s round cutouts can then be aligned with the rotor holes and standard rotor bolts inserted. It’s the rotor bolts that keep the lockring in place- pretty clever.
The second is a lightweight bi-material freehub body. Rather than carving the entire freehub body out of soft aluminium or pricey titanium, Woodman have chosen to create a threaded alloy base, onto which a steel spline threads. The rider’s pedaling keeps the splined section tight and after a few rides the connection becomes effectively permanent. Gaining extra clever points, the threads on the alloy piece are the same as on a cassette lockring- the threads that hold the lockring to the spine are the same that hold the splines to the alloy freehub body and the steel piece can have one thread all of the way through.
