Just after a sanity check really..

I always seem to end up with 2-3 wheelsets per bike. If nothing else it saves swapping tyres around. Up until now I’ve always run Shimano 9/10/11 speed hubs, and steel hubs at that. It’s been the work of a moment to whip the cassette off and transfer it over if needed.

I’m now converting the Arkose to SRAM 1×11, and will be running a couple of wheels with XD driver hubs for the 10-42 cassette. Assuming I properly grease the hub body and don’t over-torque the cassette on mounting, should I find it as easy to remove it when I want to swap it over? Or would I be better off selling the other kidney and buying a cassette per wheel?

The XD freehub seems to give people the willies tbh, maybe because of the early failures or the tool engagement issues you can have with some tools or something, but I wouldn’t be worried about swapping myself.

Buy GX cassettes, close enough to XT and reliable.

the other option is get a good rear wheel, pick a decent tyre and get an airshot for swapping them. Whats the reason behind all the wheel changes?

That’s reassuring. Thank you.

Tried having a cassette on each wheel (Reign had two wheelsets), the chain didn’t really like it, end up skipping so then had to swap the chain, which meant the chainring was a bit noisy at times.

Make sure you torque up the freehub and use plenty of copper grease. I use a little less than the advised 40nm, instead use 30nm.

I’d invest in a decent chain whip (or pliers) and a good tool and make sure it engages the cassette properly.

As bike is Arkose it has a double life. One day it’s a road bike on slicks, next day it’s bashing boggy bridleways on knobblies.

Have airshot and can mount tyres reasonably quickly, but can change wheels even quicker.

Thanks, HC. Will do.

I always seem to end up with 2-3 wheelsets per bike. If nothing else it saves swapping tyres around. Up until now I’ve always run Shimano 9/10/11 speed hubs, and steel hubs at that. It’s been the work of a moment to whip the cassette off and transfer it over if needed.[/I]

This is what I now do, previously I’d run a cassette on each wheel but ended up with issues now/again.

No idea about SRAM, but I’d probably carry on with a single cassette.

As said above make sure the splines of the cassette tool are all the way in. I had a nasty experience with an xx1 cassette and some ham fistedness. Luckily it still went on and off with care. They are a bit more delicate than Shimano ones.

Thanks, all. I’ve got myself the Park Tool FR-5G, which has the long locating pin. I’ll take care to make sure it’s all the way in, and I’ll be using a torque wrench when tightening it. I’ve got copper grease too.

Thanks again everyone for the advice

It’s not the locating pin you need to worry about, it’s the depth of the splines and clearance of the tool over any end caps fitted.

I have a deep splined remover that has been used on many many wheels and the tool still doesn’t seat well on Hope hubs, seems to be very little clearance with the XD fitted so you can rip the teeth from the driver with too much ooomph.

The hope spacer can be a bit troublesome, it’s pretty bulky so can cause some issues with tool fit. I got annoyed at mine and turned it down a bit to make it more like the profile of my DT ones.

(this is possibly the most STW way of expressing annoyance, short of throwing it in a logburner. “THAT’S IT SPACER, IT’S THE LATHE FOR YOU!1!!)

Ive become a bit of a wheel swapper this past year.
Using dt wheels so im just pulling the cassette off still attached to the freehub and popping it onto whichever wheel takes my fancy.
If i was cassette swapping with tools, i dont think I’d bother tbh.

Cheers guys, gotcha.

Now there’s an idea I hadn’t thought of, BearBack.

The hub on the wheel I’ve already bought just happens to be a DT 350. I was going to build the other up using a Novatec 772, but I might just see if I can’t run to another DT…

Tried having a cassette on each wheel (Reign had two wheelsets), the chain didn’t really like it, end up skipping so then had to swap the chain, which meant the chainring was a bit noisy at times.

this would be my main concern. as the chain wears and stretches with using one cassette it may not run smoothly on the other cassette…the only way around this would be to use a second chain for the other wheels but swapping them over would be an extra faff.

FWIW i also run 2 sets of wheels on my current bike.
one set is a lightweight tubeless enduro set and the other pair are tubed (they just wont run as tubeless despite trying) dh wheels.
both wheels run on non xd freehubs and i simply move the cassette from wheel to wheel