[Closed] Hammerschmidt...

You'll need the iscg fittings on the frame. For [i]real[/i] nichness, a beltdrive Hammerschmitt/Alfine would be hard to beat.

You'll need the iscg fittings on the frame

Prototype Orange Sub-zero with ICSG mounts and sliding dropouts... check 😀

Looking around, I could get a full Hammerschmidt setup from the US (off Ebay) for around £345 inc UPS worldwide delivery (plus whatever customs fee I get hit with, though [i]maybe[/i] I'll get lucky 🙂 ) Seems like a decent deal...

I really want a hammerthingy but 1) don't have the money and 2) still have doubts about the BB's, but really like the idea.

Looking still further... I can get a full setup off the Bay for £300! And I have a mate flying in from New York next week... I can see a plan coming together 😉 as Mr Burns would say:

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Call me cynical but I'd love to see how one stands up to a full on winter riding season through Rivi grit.

I guess I'll let you know next year 😉 (though maybe not with much Rivi grit in the equation... more Surrey Hills type muck 🙂 )

whats the smallest gear ratio allowed on an alfine? the 22t of the hammer might input a bit too much torque?

Going for the 24/38 version, not sure what the smallest ratio Alfine can take, and wouldn't the bigger ring be the one inputting more torque? I don't know... who should I ask I wonder?

Through a friend of a friend i can get hold of a complete one for about £250, but now havent a frame to fit it on. Would be interesting to see how you get on with it...

I'm interested in trying a HS to see if there's noticeable transmission drag when in overdrive. It just gets a cursory mention on some reviews (drag appears to be more noticeable) but I feel it's an important point for long term use especially on AM type bikes that are used on all day hill rides.

psychle - Member
I guess I'll let you know next year (though maybe not with much Rivi grit in the equation... more Surrey Hills type muck )

Ever wondered what happens to all that sand in the Surrey Hills come winter? Yep, it gets turned in to a highly abrasive gritty gloop!

Swiftacular, that's a bloody good price (stating the obvious)... don't suppose I could get a 'through a friend of friend of a chap I don't know on STW' rate of around £300? 😉 Would much prefer to buy in the UK rather than import, support the local economy and all that 🙂

and wouldn't the bigger ring be the one inputting more torque?

nope. more torque created by an low gear. think about it like this - your legs produce a fixed amount of power (ish) but you can wheel spin in first but not 27th. 🙂

HTH

Ill have to test the water, although he did get me a Truvativ Noir Crankset for £180 so could be true. Think i may be investing in some 2010 Revs soon too.

champion guv'ner... appreciate it 🙂 Drop me an email if you get a chance (any idea how long it might be before you might find out? just that my mate flys over next week from the States, this'll be my best chance to get it cheaply if it can't be done in the UK... thanks again for checking 🙂 )

I have one on test at the moment - Inital experience of it in this coming issue of singletrack. ;]

Matt

cool... I'll look out for it 🙂 any quick sneaky comments for now? is it worth splashing out on?

I've had one since April. I live in the mountains, am mildly overweight, frequently malco-ordinated and occasionally race downhill, so I'm not exactly renowned for being gentle on parts. so far the Hammerschmidt has been flawless, despite me not having the ISCG tab facing tool for installation. There is almost no discernible drag and the BB is holding up well. I have the grey AM cranks - while obviously not as stiff as the Diabolus on my DH bike, they're at least as good as the Hones I have on my hardtail.

is it worth it? yes and no. if you're racing and want to save as much weight as possible, then no (it's undeniably ever so slightly porky. just like me, in fact.) if you want a fit-and-forget system that works *incredibly* well and removes all those "help I'm stuck in the big ring at the bottom of a climb and can't escape" moments, then go out and buy it. Mine is on a 6.5" all-day bike; for long days out in big mountains I think it's the ideal choice.

excellent to hear Monsieur Marmot... you've sold me 😉 I'm getting one 🙂 Though mine will be on a hardtail to start with (my long-travel 'hardcore' beasty... not that I'm in any way 'hardcore 🙄 )

STOP!

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IGMC

doom doom doom doomp... you know the tune 🙂

good lad. you won't regret it!

Have you looked at the gear ratios? or experimented with a straight 24 tooth chainring running an Alfine?

I'd say that a 24 chainring driving the smallest of sprockets on the Alfine (16 I think) would provide some completely unsuable gears. You'd have to be climbing some enormously steep hills to use some of those ratios and if you were then your legs would be spinning at 100+rpm and youd be moving a walking pace.

Unless you have found otherwise.....

blob i think you got you numbers backwards.

24/16 with an alfine in hammertime gives a lowest gear equivalent to a 22-28 on a normal drivetrain, and a top gear equivalent to a 44-11. (i think anyway)

id prob go 24/20, give a lower top end (equiv to 36-11) and lower bottom end (22-34, i like spinning up hills :0)

I've had my OEM one on my 20O9 Attack Trail since the snow in Feb. Commute to work 5 days a week on it, and do offroad stuff on the weekends and occasional evenings. It works a treat. It's dead easy to take apart and clean, and it makes front mechs look and feel shite. You never get problems in mud or snow or grit, (unlike rear cassette), chain never falls off, and if like me you occasionally ride in jeans, you'll never get them caught in it. Clearance for logs and drop-offs is superb. There's a bit of drag, so for XC race, then no, but for classic XC rides where you try and climb the silliest gradients and hammer the descents (ie the riding most of us probably do) then there's nothing better that I've tried. I'd love a hub gear at the back, but I'm running a Maxle 12mm CrossMax SX wheelset so can't do it.
I fitted the 24t though as the 22t standard set up was too low for XC use.
It would be nice to up the front to 26T though...oh well can't have it all eh?
Oh, even the bb has held up for what, 6 months now....that's good for Truvativ!
Buy one!

STATO: You may be right. But it's worth checking.

My IO came with a 36/18 (e.g. an 'input ratio' of 2) a combo which I felt to be too hard on some of the harder gradients I regularly ride. I changed it to 36/20 (input of 1.8) which brought it down so the tough gradients were achievable. Unfortunately, above about 18mph I spin out.

If you alter the chainring/sprocket combo to 24/16 then this brings the input down to 1.5 which I think will be silly low given the difference a 0.2 drop made to me.

I don't have the alfine ratios at hand however and bow to anyone's better judgement!

Edit: if anyone's going to work this out, I'd be interested in how much overlap there would be in the available 16 gears....

Alfine ratios here:
[url] http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/shimano-nexus.html [/url]

8 1.615:1
7 1.419:1
6 1.223:1
5 1:1
4 0.851:1
3 0.748:1
2 0.644:1
1 0.527:1

I'd sell the Alfine and buy a Rohloff for the sort of money you're looking at- it'll be a seriously heavy bike with both on it.

Blob: that was me checking, i have spreadsheets :0)

LOL! I was just putting a spreadsheet together!

Here you go....

[url= http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t6GqemEn5t629N8IILZErGA&output=html ]GEEK ALERT!!!![/url]

(sheet 2 has the ratios in order, so you can see overlaps etc.)

Cheers for the spreadsheet Stato... so is this a bad/good thing? I don't really understand what the figures are showing me 🙁

sorry, its one i made for myself ages ago so its not exactly 'user friendly'. Basically it works out the equivalent ratio of the gear you use combined with the ratios of the Alfine, then gives that ratio as gear you would get in a normal drivetrain.

So in the column 'equates to chainring*sprocket' you can see that in gear 1 of the alfine is equivalent to running a 36t ring and a 36t rear sprocket, in gear 8 it would be the same as a 36t front and a 12t rear. All of that for a 20t on the alfine and a 38t front ring (or overdrive if we are talking hammertime). The second chart works out the same but for a 24t front sprocket.

I think that you're going to lose a lot of power through frictional losses at both ends.

I've got power to burn baby 🙂 Whilst I dont expect the crank arms to spin 100% freely, I don't think there'll be [i]that[/i] much resistance/loss?

there wont be much, but youll feel and hear it and there will be days where it will sap energy from your soul as your working away on a hill only for all your hard fought efforts to be wasted by that damned drive train! (well, thats whatll be going on in your head, ex-rohloff owner talking here)

Presumably if you were that much at the limit, you'd be in the bottom hammertime gear (eg the 22) in which case it's 1:1 and there's no real loss 😉

so... general consensus is that it'll be a bit heavier than a 'normal' derailleur based setup (doesn't really bother me) and will have a little bit of drag/loss of power (again, doesn't bother me); these are the only real downsides that we can see (apart from cost, though it's not that bad if I get one from the States)?

Positives are that I'll be able to shift gears standing still etc, much better ground clearance, no derailleurs to tune or break, winter/muck proof (?) and of course it'll look rather cool (clean SS lines with 16 gears to play with...)

Anything I've missed?

did you just say prototype subzero? do tell? PHOTOS!!! 😀

I think it'll be interesting, and it's a thought experiment that I've had in the past, but thought that it'd be quite expensive, and that if there was an obvious advantage, a manufacturer would have done it by now.

The thing that made me feel it was probably a no-goer were the frictional losses, didn't know about the one to one ratios, and agreed that wouldn't be so bad, but it's not always hills that knacker you out. If you're having to work twice as hard to keep up with your friends on the flats, then that's going to piss you off fairly quickly.

BTW, not trying ot piss on your chips, go for it and then we'll know what the truth is rather than idle speculation.

[i]and that if there was an obvious advantage, a manufacturer would have done it by now.[/i]

i disagree
either the deraileur system was conceived as perfect from the start
or
manufacturers and people just like to go with what they know works

I want one even more now, wonder how much i could sell the missus for ❓

But if you actually look at the ratios, in the lower hammertime gear (1:1, no significant losses as far as I can see as there's nothing moving inside the HS as it's locked solid) with an alfine, you could be running quite a reasonable gear - say 24 HS gear with a 20T sprocket and top gear on the Alfine (1.615:1) is a ratio of 1.94 which is the equivalent of 32/16.5 which is almost exactly what most SSers ride so presumably not all that bad on the flat most of the time (at least that's my experience).

PS Psycle - can you make sure you post back on here when you've got it all together?

Oh yes, definitely let us know.

psycle- it'll be a LOT heavier than a normal derailleur set up. An Alfine is already heavier (about 1590g, compared to a normal drivetrain of about 1200g), and a Hammerschmidt set up is another 1600g (compared to SLX at about 950g)- that's 2lbs extra weight (claimed- switching from a Rohloff to XT/Race Face saved me 4lbs)and the drag is quite soul sapping at times, though at others you'd never know.

it'll be a LOT heavier than a normal derailleur set up

1-2kg isn't going to kill me, I'm certainly no weight weenie or XC race whippet (I could easily lose 10kg just off my own lard ass 🙂 ) Light(ish) wheels are more important in the big scheme of things aren't they, from my understanding of these things it's rotational mass that you really feel?

yeah but psycle there is a growing obsession on here about explaining to everyone how you got your 6 inch all mountain bombproof trail muncher under 22.5lbs

meh... not in my house 🙂 I'll be happy if this bike comes in at around about 25lbs, which I think it will (it's a hardtail btw, 4.5lbs frame)

just ordered the crankset and shifter from the States, £300 all in (my mate is bringing it over for me, hopefully she dodges customs, though I've told her to take it all out of it's packaging and pass it off as 2nd hand if they do ask questions...) Should be here first week of September... now I just need to order a BB and find a shop in London that has the specific facing tool... anyone got any ideas on this?

Bah... just found out that NO store in London has the specific ISCG/BB facing tool (checked with Fisher Outdoor direct), closest store is Leisure Lakes in Daventry... the tool costs £210 so I can see why not many stores have one, I'm guessing it's not the most frequently used tool in the box 🙄

So, looks like I'll have to take a drive up to Daventry and get them to fit the thing... no biggie, but slightly inconvenient :lOl:

[b]psychle[/b]

Please post here what is the cost of facing the frame with that HS facing tool. I am thinking about one of those mid next year so I have to calculate facing the frame into the total cost.
Cheers

Fly in the ointment time, just tried fitting one to an Orange Alpine 160 yesterday and it's a different ISCG fitting, Hammerschmidts will only fit 03/05 ISCG according to Fishers, nothing else.

Pretty sure that is the case... 03/05 ICSG only, how do you tell the difference btw? didn't think to check that properly 😳

Coatesy, they're quoting me £45 but that includes fitting it as well... seems a little expensive perhaps?

Much larger diameter bolt circle diameter on 03/05 than on the Alpine I worked on, these were very close to the BB shell, needed to be about 10mm further out.
£45 to face BB and mount, measure up and shim out mounts seems a reasonable price, check out the instructions on SRAM's own website and see what's involved.

I think thats very fair. You want them to use their specialist tools and labour to set up a product you didnt buy from them. Not unreasonable at all.

Or you could buy the tool for £210.

If you'd bought it from them, whats the cost vs the issues with warranty, (ie sister/friend buys it, in another country) and possible import dutiesas well as the increase in fitting, and driving to Daventry and risking a wasted journey if there are issues fitting?

you can get facing tools a lot cheaper than that

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I think thats very fair. You want them to use their specialist tools and labour to set up a product you didnt buy from them. Not unreasonable at all.

Wasn't been narky about it, was just a query 🙂

f you'd bought it from them, whats the cost vs the issues with warranty

Buying in the UK would be £500-£520 just for the cranks, then £40+ for the shifter and £40+ for the BB (so around £600). I've got the crank & shifter for £300, unfortunately they were out of stock on the BB otherwise I would've got that for an extra £20 as well... Fingers crossed my friend doesn't get hit with customs when she comes through LHR, but even if she does, it should only be another £45 or so (right?), so that's £345 vs £545+ = minimum £200 savings...

I don't know if Leisure Lakes would've fitted it for free if I'd bought it from them, maybe they would've, who knows... As for warranty, I've done a fair bit of research and I haven't really heard of anyone (touch wood) having to make a claim... so hopefully that won't be an issue either 🙂

Face it, UK prices are a real rip off 🙄 😆

Apologies, the written language fails to convey correct tone under my fingertips. I wasn't meaning to be an arsehole.

no worries 🙂 still wasn't being narky 😉

aye you were! fight?

(loads of they wee faces inserted here like this one :-))

the faces are important 🙂 😆 😉 🙄 😀