Cycling UK Forum

A few days ago I bought a 1950 steel shell 40° Sturmey ASC hub from UK eBay, allegedly in working order. (I have a couple of FC hubs if spares are needed.)

Unfortunately, 40° rims are almost unobtainable in Australia, and importing rims from elsewhere tends to be expensive, due to the volume. So, I'm wondering if it might be more practical to use say a 32° (or 36°?) hub instead. I could probably get a 20° rim fairly easily, but really don't want to damage the ASC flanges, given the hub shell is one of the few unique parts.

If anyone has suggestions about suitable 40° rims, or spoking patterns with <40° rims, please speak up!

Forgot to mention, the rim can be 622, 584 or even 559mm ETRTO BSD.

Thanks,
Stephen (who's in the UK at present but is returning to Sydney in a few weeks)

Back in the 1980s we sold a depressingly large number of bikes with Ofmega Mistral RDs, and so I had to adjust lots of them. They shifted badly, about what one would expect from what was effectively a Campg NR clone made from either pink or black cheese. If you really had to have a pink RD then they were great, otherwise not so much. I cannot remember now whether they all broke or not, but my experiences with Ofmega parts were almost entirely negative (probably why I've forgotten); their later "indexing" derailleurs and shifters were a PITA too. We sold Suntour before, and it was infinitely superior...

Equating CFRP with injection moulded parts is fairly ludicrous; the difference in stiffness is massive, and it's likely the difference in strength is too, in most cases. Personally, I like forged alu derailleurs, but Shimano seem to be fairly sensible about not making things that snap too often, unlike some of SRAM's earlier carbon cage plates. (I saw a guy snap two XX$pensive SRAM RDs in two days during a MTB stage race once.)

Later,
Stephen

IMHO, the "strange reason" Shimano chose not to use a 74mm bcd on 7703, 7803, etc is a bit complicated, but boils down to economics.

1. Racing cyclists generally hate, loathe and detest triples, so weren't going to buy any; the potential market was MAMILs
2. All the cranks using the adapter-style middle rings and 92 bcd inners have hollow arms. A different forging would be required if a 74mm bcd was to be incorporated, and this would be expensive, and difficult to justify given limited sales
3. Instead, the inner flange (below/inside the inner ring) was machined off the existing forging. This enables the new middle ring to extend past the spider and incorporate mounting points for the inner. The BB spindle is longer but that's easy to change
4. Racers and wannabes don't need/use/want very small rings, so extending the middle ring further in would just add weight, plus 92 bcd locks customers in for spares

Another option would be to use a TA or Stronglight triple adapter middle chainring. This would look a bit less elegant and the pins and ramps might not line up as well but they have a 74mm inner bcd, allowing inner rings down to 24T.

The problem of the outer sitting too high can be reduced or eliminated by using a 5703 (105) FD; these are intended for 50x39x30, so are expecting 11T between the two outer rings, not 13T as with 7803 and 6703; the FD can sit ~4mm lower before the inner cage plate will hit the middle ring.

See, it's all simple really.

Later,
Stephen

^ There was definitely a Dura-Ace 740x 8 speed UG body; I have one. Shimano only made them for a year or do, then STI and HG came along. However, this body used the smaller diameter end section as per Dura-Ace 5/6/7 speed hubs, so only a Dura-Ace first position threaded cog will fit. On the positive side, Dura-Ace EX 11T cogs will fit, which they won't on the 740x HG bodies.

^ Campag seem to be trying to have as many incompatible Ergopower innards and left shifters as possible though, plus I suffered hand damage from using Ergos in PBP 2015 that persisted for some months. On the other hand, I've had STI since 1991 and zero broken levers or hands from them to date.

I'm not convinced things are necessarily more incompatible than in the past, but rather that there are many more options - some totally different to others - and thus it's impossible that everything could get along. Nobody expects that to happen with car parts, railway gauges, computer software, etc, so I'm somewhat perplexed why people would expect bicycles to be different.

Later,
Stephen

If shifting onto the small ring of a triple is reluctant, one possible solution is to use a Deda Dog Fang (or similar) to prevent overshifting onto the BB shell, and then to undo the inner limit screw as far as is necessary, i.e., until the shift happens reliably.

Also, the closer the outer cage plate is to the middle ring, the better the downshift ought to be, so it's best to avoid FDs intended for bigger middle-to-outer gaps than you will be using; these must be mounted higher.

Some combinations seem to shift abysmally for no obvious reason, and I'm inclined to think that misaligned pins and ramps often make shifting worse, not better, unlike matched sets.

Best of luck

^ Definitely not sacrilege - I used to do this all the time back in the day. A bit of creative bending of the cage plate(s) in various places and directions can solve quite a few shifting problems, improve clearance to the crankarm, etc. I usually used an 8"/200mm shifter to do this, but whatever works.

Probably not a good idea with Campag's carbon cage plates(!), and I'd be careful with alloy (like recent Dura-Ace), but steel is remarkably tolerant of being bent - carefully.

Later,
Stephen

IIRC the Ergos were Ultracrap; I think only Chorus up has the fancier internals, and there have now been several cheaper versions. In the end the Ergos damaged my hands fairly seriously in PBP, so they've been semi-retired.

So far everything I've ever seen suggests triples are best used with bar-end shifters, for the FD at least. Indexing or quasi-indexing is fine with doubles but it seems to be a PITA with road triples. At the rear things were fine, but the front aggravated the hell out of me.

There's only 1T in it - I wouldn't call that a lot! Shimano and Campag have used 52x39x30, and all the current Shimano triples (road, trekking & MTB) have a bigger gap from middle to outer than from middle to inner. I suppose I could try a slightly larger middle ring, but the Ergos really didn't seem like they wanted to pull enough cable for any of the FDs I tried, and there were at least five.

Thanks Brucey,

I didn't know the S3X was fundamentally different. So much for that idea.

IIRC, there were only three or four major differences between the FC and ASC, and the FC and FM only differ by having different sized sun wheels and planet pinions. That's not going to help if the S3X is completely incompatible...

As an aside, I notice Paul Smith had Carmina cranks plus rings plus Campag and mentioned shifting problems, and am wondering if these are inherent with that combination. In 2015 I had Carminas with 47x35x24 TA rings (marked 9/10 speed), Veloce 10 then later Athena 11 triple Ergos with various FDs (multiple Shimano, Suntour and Campag were tried) and front shifting was poor to abysmal. Other bits included Shimano 10 speed cassette and Ultegra chain and a Deda Dogfang to prevent chain drop.

Shifting between the middle and small rings in both directions was very reluctant, but worse from small to middle. I tried a friction downtube shifter briefly and things were somewhat better; having extra cable slack definitely helped downshifting. Everything started off new, so excessive wear wasn't the problem. Chainline was correct too...

Maybe Ergos just don't work well with triples, or else perhaps the TA rings' shifting aids didn't line up? Whatever the reason(s), that bike had the worst front shifting I've ever experienced, and by a large margin. Is there any hope of getting 3x10 front shifting to work acceptably without using a friction shifter?

As I understand it, most of the guts in the FM & S5 are the same, and one can be converted into the other if one has the right bits. Presumably the FM & FC could also be turned into 5 speeds but the jump into top gear might be a bit big.

What I'm wondering is what's inside the S3X hub, and whether an S3X plus an FC can effectively yield an ASC. From the old SA manuals it appears that there are only a few crucial parts that differ between the FC & ASC, but they are unique to the ASC. Since the S3X is also a 3 speed fixed hub perhaps it contains similar parts (one of which is the hub shell).

IMHO the ratios in the S3X are too far apart, hence my interest; I have a couple of old FCs parts could be scrounged from.

Given what's been said abut Rohloff hubs generally, I'd be inclined to think failure risk is very low indeed, and thus the consequences of failure aren't too scary. "Value" and ease of repairs should any be needed are a whole other story though, and this is where things get sticky...

^ I totally agree that people in India, etc, are amazingly skilled at fixing things given the resources available. In 2000 we met a Dutch couple in Islamabad who'd ridden out to Kathmandu and were on their way home. They decided to service their bikes, but found that Elspeth's cones were pitted. A day's search in Islamabad and Rawalpindi proved that there were no Q/R cones or axles to be had, so the only solution was to fix the existing cones. We were eventually directed to a radiator repair shop(!), who annealed the old cones, machined a new bearing surface with their lathe, then re-heattreated the cones, all whilst conversing and feeding us cups of tea. In the meantime, the young guys there were repairing and totally rebuilding radiators that would undoubtedly have been written off in the west; labour is cheap on the subcontinent but parts are not.

When the job was finished it proved impossible to get the guys to accept any payment, as they kept saying, "You are our guests!" This was not an uncommon attitude in Pakistan then, where many people were amazingly helpful and hospitable. Heroic measures are not unusual when things need to be repaired in Asia; I had new parts made for a cleat in Kashgar.

Still, it is easier to have tyres of a size that can be had locally. Even if you can only get crappy tyres (as was the case in Leh) they are a lot better than no tyres at all. Or wheels of different sizes, etc.

Yes, one can tour with anything and not (necessarily) have problems. I too have toured with STI levers, and have crashed them without functional damage; FWIW, I'm still using my 1991 mark 1 Dura-Ace 8 speed kit, although not for touring.

However, the point I and others have been trying to make is that there are simpler, more reliable and more easily serviceable alternatives to some of what is out there. Good quality stuff is generally reliable if not abused too much but that does not mean it cannot fail. And yes, if one is in a country where the same wheel size as yours is in use, then a cheap rim can be used as a replacement. However, there are many countries where there are (i) very few wheel sizes on local bikes and/or (II) very poor availability of *any* spare parts even of very low quality. For instance, 700C wheels and tyres are basically unknown outside places like Europe, North America, Auatralia, NZ and some SE Asian cities - nothing is to be had on the Subcontinent, etc. Getting even marginally acceptable quality tyres (in any size) can be difficult in some places too.

Some people are a lot harder on gear than others, and some are more or less skilled at repairs and maintenance too. It doesn't hurt to be a bit conservative with gear if venturing off the beaten path.