I’ve been after a spare front wheel that I could fit a mud tyre to for instant swap out in poor conditions… my brother just bought me one for my birthday – complete with tyre! Result. However the only thing is it has centrelock rotor hubs. I never had these before in my life.

Can people recommend a decent 200mm rotor? Will CL rotors be the same distance from the hub as six bolt? Is it worth getting one of them CL-6 bolt adapters? My current wheel has Hope rotors (Hope caliper too) hoping I won’t have to align the caliper every time I swap… ta

Centrelock is fine, the alignment is the same as six-bolt. Just get one of the adapters and you can fit what you want rotor wise.

Yup, I had rotors already so I used adaptors- I think just the ones that came with my DT hubs in the end, I bought some Ashimas which seemed good too but never used them. I did some comparisons and it actually worked out lighter than even the lightest centrelocks I could find, as well as opening up choice and being cheaper per rotor. 5 years or so later and I’m pretty happy I made the right choice

You’ll find that if your hubs are different brands, you’ll probably have to centre the calliper each time anyway, regardless of rotor mounting options. Not everyone’s tolerances match.

I’ve got 2 sets of wheels for my Fargo one is Centerlock and the booked so to make them compatible I bought some sims to make the bolted rotors match the Centerlock. Just do that to make your life easier.

I chose centre lock when putting my bike together a few months ago as I think they look a lot better than having the 6 bolts (how shallow). Now I am looking to build up a better set of wheels I realise my mistake as hub choices are much more limited!

You’ll find that if your hubs are different brands, you’ll probably have to centre the calliper each time anyway, regardless of rotor mounting options.

Not unless you shim the rotor out 😉

Spare a thought for those of us still playing with IS mount calipers!

Shimano adaptors are cheap but look crap and have tiny bolts that rust. DT (or dT style) adaptors for the win and use 6 bolt disc. Personal experience of CL hubs is that the disc often gets a small amount of movement on the splines (which is just annoying, and happens if you’re using an adaptor too). Main issue is that if they come loose you need a bottom bracket tool which isn’t something many people carry on trail or in car.

Main issue is that if they come loose you need a bottom bracket tool which isn’t something many people carry on trail or in car.

Its normally a cassette tool for the rear and a hollowtech II BB tool for the front. So two tools you’re not likely to be carrying on the trail!

Nothing wrong with centrelock, I had a couple of sets of Shimano wheels with centrelock rotors and they worked well, but its a pretty pointless alternative to 6 bolt.

I run 2 x wheels the same as this, reality is, the adaptor is good, but the CL rotors are just easy to put in and run, if you are running a hope caliper, then get a hope 200mm rotor, due to the depth i don’t think you can run shimano, sram, etc, depending on the caliper.

As for centering, i do that every ride any way, wheels come off when stored in the car, so when putting back together, just loosen the caliper bolts, pull brake and then tighten bolts, literally a 1 minute job.

As for centering, i do that every ride any way, wheels come off when stored in the car, so when putting back together, just loosen the caliper bolts, pull brake and then tighten bolts, literally a 1 minute job.

What makes you think they will have moved on the journey?

For what its worth, I bought a set of DT EX5101’s that have center lock.
(dt240 hubs)

For something to do, I built a spare set of wheels over lock down 1.
In the hope that I could put different tyres on the spare and then swap round tyres as the conditions dictate and wouldn’t need to adjust gears/brakes, and everything the same I decided to use DT 350’s to save a bit of £….
The front hub doesn’t need any adjustment
The rear, gears dont need any adjustment
But the brakes on the rear do.

So, no guarantees…

I actually bought a few CL spacer/shims, bur havent yet got round to figuring out what wheelset needs what shims to make it a straight swap.

I’ve never managed to work out why centre lock hasn’t caught on as much as 6 bolt fixings, so much easier and quicker than faffing around with those 6 silly bolts, CL has always been my preference.

The Centerlock standard is proprietary, rights are owned by Shimano and I recall reading that to use Centrelock other companies would need to pay Shimano a fee. Six bolt is an open standard and is free for any company to use. This is one of the main reasons why 6 bolt is much more prevalent.

tomhoward
Full Member

What makes you think they will have moved on the journey?

Just the tightening of the axle, just stops the slight skiffing and so on.

Bazz
Free Member

I’ve never managed to work out why centre lock hasn’t caught on as much as 6 bolt fixings, so much easier and quicker than faffing around with those 6 silly bolts,

Ever had one come loose? Ride over. Ever had one of your 6 silly bolts come loose? You don’t notice. Ever had 2 come loose? You still don’t notice. You might notice 3, depending on where they are on the rotor, at which point, you can tighten them back up with the T25 that’s on every multitool. And the part that wears and needs replaced is cheaper.

Centrelock has some advantages too, but mostly for Shimano who make money off it. Which of course is also a big part of why it’s an unsuccesful standard, it’s more expensive for manufacturers to use.

Why would it come loose if tightened correctly?
I’ve been using CL for years and they’ve never come loose.

I once had a rotor bolt snap leaving the thread in the hub.

scruff
Free Member

Why would it come loose if tightened correctly?

Vibration, time. But more importantly, sometimes things aren’t tightened correctly. Maybe it was you, maybe it was the shop, maybe there was a defect in the parts. When it happened to me, I don’t know if it was tightened correctly (not by me) or whether it worked loose but either way it happened. Single points of failure are troublesome and worse if they’re not easily rectified.

And just to throw the exact same argument at you, why did that bolt snap if tightened correctly? And what were the consequences? Bolts can always be removed but 6 bolts has good redundancy, you could just run with 5 and use some of that. Basically the same things can cause either to fail, but only one of them is dependent on working perfectly.

Ever had one of your 6 silly bolts come loose? You don’t notice. Ever had 2 come loose? You still don’t notice. You might notice 3, depending on where they are on the rotor, at which point, you can tighten them back up with the T25 that’s on every multitool. And the part that wears and needs replaced is cheaper.

Had, I think, 4 fall out and get lost when I was greasing them rather than using thread lock. took a bolt from the rear and quite happily finished the ride with 3 bolts on the front disc.

I like the speed of fitting of Centrelock, but it makes the discs more expensive, seems to have negligible weight benefits. The ‘different tool to fit front and rear’ and actually ‘different tool to fit on different wheels’ (had to buy another cassette tool, on top of the QR and 12mm ones I already had, just to fit the centre lock rotor on an Alfine hub) is just annoying.

I’ve had a centrelock ring shear off and leave the threads in the hub, which was a real pain to get out.

I have preferred CL due to the ease of travel and taking rotors off and on again, but choice of rotors and expense of those rotors is a bit off putting

b33k34
Full Member

The ‘different tool to fit front and rear’ and actually ‘different tool to fit on different wheels’ (had to buy another cassette tool, on top of the QR and 12mm ones I already had, just to fit the centre lock rotor on an Alfine hub) is just annoying.

To be fair, it was developed for quick release and it wasn’t an issue then (it’s part of why Shimano pushed back so hard against 20mm, that and their cup-and-cone, neither design was well suited to big axles).

I’ve never tried but I’m reasonably sure I could put the same ring on both ends of mine- it has a 15mm specific and a 12mm specific but I can’t see why the 15mm wouldn’t go on the rear and that’d allow for a single tool (BB tool).