Forum menu
My back wheel finally died.
[Flag flaps gently at half mast, The Last Post plays solemly]
Well, to be truthful, I had to put it down as it was suffering too much.
The hub - a Hope XC - Locked solid leaving me riding fixed for the last 3 miles on Saturday. Diagnosis - A second snapped axle mashed the pawls into the rachet, writing it off.
The other damage, on inspection, was
Stripped disc bolt thread
6 spokes too bent from rock strikes or otherwise mangled to be even kept as spares
Rim, Mavic 717, 2-3 big dings and a flat spot from when the trye popped off on the road and locked the wheel, dragging the bare rim down the tarmac
To be fair, I'm very hard on back wheels (Lots of me + Lots of power x Not much skill = Mashed wheels) and this must be the longest surviving I've ever had. It's done thousands and thousands of miles, lots of Stanes, lots of Wales, a fair bit of Peaks, Cotswolds and the like, it's been on 3-4 bikes, used a SS wheel and generally abused, and I've been expecting this for a yar or more now, and I've been bodging and nursing it along. Poor thing.
And of course, last week I sold my spare pair of wheels. D'Oh!
Still (IHN take note!) being the pikey I am, I had a £5 wheel I'd bought from the local recycling centre (OK, council tip...), complete with disc and cassette. So on Sunday, out of the ashes of a mostly knackered wheel with a very knackered hub, and a wheel so shonky someone else threw it away, I built another wheel for virtually £nothing. And it's sorta straightish. And the bearings seem OK. And that cassette took a new chain without slippage.
Ahh the ups and downs of MTBing (pun intended)
Oh, and I learnt that you CAN use spokes that are 2-3mm longer than the DT Swiss spoke calculator says you should use, too. 😀
AN use spokes that are 2-3mm longer than the DT Swiss spoke calculator says you should use, too
Ahh I've used 1mm over without probs. I guess these just enough thread to push it a bit more.
Well, DT Swiss said 260 & 259. I had 262s (And some small nipples) and decided to give it a shot, and it worked fine. 🙂
send the hub back to hope, they can fit a new rachet. The cost of a new axel, bearings, pawls, springs, and rachet ring probably render it worthless though.
As for the disk mounts being striped, I ran an XT hub with 3 striped threads for years. And not 3 evenly spaced ones, 2 together an one oposite!
Do all your wheels have birthdays? Do you buy them rim tape as presents? Or is it a less formal affair?
Oh, I bust the thread 2 years ago. I drilled it through when a bolt got siezed in there, and used a longer bolt with a nut on the back.
There's no piont trying to resaurrect the hub. It's done its time, and I had a spare hub lying around, waiting especially for this day. Which I knew was coming!
Hey, Rich, I retired that mech I bought off you ar the same time. Gone a bit slack, had that, and was running bodged in X9 jockey wheels. Which don't really fit X7. Alledgedly. 🙂
Was it one of my old hope wheels then? I thought all SRAM jockey wheels were a bit iffy :p
Nahh, I bought the wheels from CRC, which is why I know how old they were. 🙂
It has to be said that after spending a long time measuring my hub (couldn't find the specs online) and trying various measurements in the spoke calculator, then using 'too long' spokes, I've come to the conclusion that spoke length isn't as critical as it seems at first, too.....