SICK OF IT - GEARS AND THINGS

[hjd10]

Whatever the reason; what is wrong with a nice 3 x 7 set up that, with the right block choice, gives a wide range and avoids all the above?
I am looking forward to being shot down!

Not by me. At the moment, I have two 3 x 8 bikes, one 3 x 9 bike and a 2 x 9 bike.

I have absolutely no interest in 1 x 11 and also try to avoid cassettes that start with an 11 tooth (another pet hate of mine).

Haha, I have both of those and am happy with the setup on my MTB........ Now 10-46 1x 11 on my touring bike.

[gaz]

I like 3x5! - nice wide cog spacing, plenty enough of ratios for me, etc. Of course unavailable I guess on freehubs, so stop reading now!

5 speed freehub. 5 speed cassette, admitedly not wide spacing but I'm sure you could construct your own.

Keeping my own 3x5 going by reversing Sachs-Maillard sprockets at the moment, when I can't do that anymore I'll probably go 3x7/3x8.

[Sweep]

ah OK - to be honest, personally, can't see a lot of point losing the 11 if you don't gain something at the other end.

I'm no racer so don't care about close ratios.

[Brucey]

losing the 11T is (IMHO for touring) worth it just to have a stronger, less dished wheel (for any given weight). A shortened 9s cassette on a short freehub body allows for an almost dishless rear wheel.

cheers

[landsurfer]

All my bikes are 1 x 8, and I ride everywhere on this setup from the peaks to the flat it works fine.

[reohn2]

losing the 11T is (IMHO for touring) worth it just to have a stronger, less dished wheel (for any given weight). A shortened 9s cassette on a short freehub body allows for an almost dishless rear wheel.

cheers

Are there many problems with well built touring wheels collapsing under strain?
If not then why do we need to step back to 7sp freehub bodies?

Cro Mo axle big bearing Shimano MTB 9/10sp freehubs such as Deore,LX or XT M756,well built into touring wheels work well for considerable mileages and don't collapse under the strain of touring loads.If the hub gives any problems it'll most likely be one of two things cones or freehub body failure due to a lack of maintenance,a new hub can be bought for £20 and the freehub,axle,bearings and cones swapped over with the hour.I've yet to break a Shimano 9/10sp hub and they'll rumble on,on dire internals for a few thousand miles without collapsing if needs be.
A good 9sp touring cassette can made up by splitting a 14-25 and an 11-32or34 cassette to make a 14-32or34 with a range of close ratios in the cruising gears in the middle of the cassette and low ratios when used with a triple square taper chainset such as Spa's own Stronglight Impact copy with 24,26/34,36/44,46,48t rings,or 22/32/44t MTB square taper triple.Anyone needing a bigger top gear than 48x14 on a loaded touring bike is a superman and should swap the 48t outer ring for a 50t one

[Brucey]

less dish is always better; the issue is just how much better. After many years of riding both dishless and dished wheels, I now have a pretty fair idea.

A typical fully dished rear wheel that uses conventional parts (and is strong enough at least in the short term) can be built three ways

- with a very heavy rim and high spoke tension
- with a lighter rim and a high spoke tension (in excess of the safe limit for the rim on the DS)
- with a lighter rim and threadlock on the NDS nipples.

IMHO none of these solutions is really ideal; the most common of them is the first (in a touring bike) and IME it is the only one that has a reasonable life expectancy in mixed use. The problem is that the wheels end up being very heavy. If this were the only way that'd be fine, but it isn't.

By contrast in an undished wheel, very much lighter weight parts can be used with no spoke tension imbalance issues and excellent reliability. The result is that you can have a wheelset that is lightweight and pleasant to use normally (i.e. with light loads), yet is strong enough for occasional weeks of loaded touring.

It is difficult to be exact about how much lighter an undished wheel can be built for any given strength/service, but it would be at least 100g and might be over 200g.

By way of example I have an undished rear wheel that was built with a ~430g rim and it has done at least 50000 miles of mixed use. In the meantime other (dished) wheels with heavier rims have come and gone, having fallen by the wayside at much lower mileages because they are simply less strong.

It is all very well saying 'oh my wheels don't break, everything is just fine' but the inescapable fact is that your wheels are heavier and/or weaker than they need to be, just because the wheels are dished. It isn't for nothing that designers spend their time on offset rims, clever spoking patterns in rear wheels, offset back ends etc.

I think that trading away a (near-useless anyway) 11T sprocket for a less-dished and therefore stronger rear wheel is an excellent deal.

cheers

[whoof]

I currently run
3 x 7
3 x 8
2 x 9
2 x 10
3 x 10

I'm happy with all of them.

Until you decide one morning in a hurry that you want to swap the rear wheel from one bike to another. Am I right about this (I am not certain about what will work with what)? I think compatibility across your bikes is an important concept - I think the manufacturers believe that we only have one bike (the new one) and all the others get scrapped. This also what puts me off discs and never mind the wheel size.

If I was in a hurry I could either: Use one of the many spares I have, swap wheels with one of Mrs Whoof's collection of bikes or even easier take one of the other bikes.

[mig]

how heavy are those cassettes with huge sprockets? and how much extra chain do they require?

[Bmblbzzz]

I don't know that sketch but I do know that tongue brushing is what people have been doing in India and some other parts of the world for hundreds of years, first with neem sticks, nowadays with special toothbrushes.

OK, I'll bite, as it were, at the risk of sending the original thread (which I am genuinely interested in) off topic.

So.

Why?

You want to know why people brush their tongues?
Oral hygiene. Removing microscopic food deposits which allow bacteria to breed, leading to bad breath and possibly also involved in tooth decay.

[Bmblbzzz]

losing the 11T is (IMHO for touring) worth it just to have a stronger, less dished wheel (for any given weight). A shortened 9s cassette on a short freehub body allows for an almost dishless rear wheel.

cheers

You mean take a 9-speed cassette, eg 11-32, and remove the 11 sprocket to give an 8-speed cassette such as 13-32? I agree that the 11-tooth sprocket is pretty useless for the non-racing cyclist, but wouldn't it be simpler just to start with an 8-speed?

[reohn2]

Brucey
Whilst I concede a dishless rear wheel is stronger than dished,135 MTB hub based dished rear wheels aren't weak,the proof is in the pudding and there many thousand tourists light to heavy riding them,if it were such a bad design we'd know about it and offset rear triangles would be the norm,but they aren't.
I sort of take you point about a lighter rim with dishless but things aren't as bad as you make out,many tourists are riding on 36hole rims weighing 520 to 580g,the heavier Sputnik type 700g rims are for the heavy expedition type touring.
I've never yet got 50,000 out of a rim,that said it maybe possible with ceramic coated rims,but the enemy of all rims isn't usually unequal spoke tension but wearing through of the braking surface,which on modern lightweight rims is PDQ especially in all weather UK use.I've had 20,000 out of Sputniks and reckon there was another 5k+ in them,I wouldn't have got that out of Mavic 719s or DRC ST19s dishless or not.

Good luck buying an offset rear end frame off the peg,Orbit AFAIK were the only maker to offer one,and if it had been so successful other makers would've followed suit.Offset rear ends aren't any harder to make than inline frames if the workshop is set up for it.
Possible problems begin with dishless rear ends finding an OTP wheel if you trash one on tour,and heels catching the r/h chainstay if you have big feet and like a narrow Q.
All this wouldn't be a problem if a dished wheel gave many problems but they don't if built well,and if wheel weight is such a big issue when unloaded in day to day use,a spare pair of wheels with nice lightweight tyres to go along with them could solve that problem.

Don't think I'm putting down dishless rear wheels I'm not it's just that they fix a problem that doesn't really exist for the modern tourist IMHO.

[Brucey]

Good luck buying an offset rear end frame off the peg...

plenty of modern MTBs use offset back ends. That is only one way of getting dishless wheels anyway....

If you use heavily dished wheels (and 135mm/9s are far from the worst BTW) then it boils down to the simple fact that your wheels are a bit heavier than they need to be for any given level of strength. If you say 'well that is OK, it is a touring bike after all' then that is fine; it is part of the 6-7lbs or so that typically differentiates a touring bike from (say) an Audax machine.

However if you use 135mm/7s hubs you can still fit 8 sprockets from a 9s cassette and you have almost most dishless wheels. All it costs you is an 11T sprocket; for me it is a no-brainer.

cheers

[reohn2]

Good luck buying an offset rear end frame off the peg...

plenty of modern MTBs use offset back ends. That is only one way of getting dishless wheels anyway....

If you use heavily dished wheels (and 135mm/9s are far from the worst BTW) then it boils down to the simple fact that your wheels are a bit heavier than they need to be for any given level of strength. If you say 'well that is OK, it is a touring bike after all' then that is fine; it is part of the 6-7lbs or so that typically differentiates a touring bike from (say) an Audax machine.

However if you use 135mm/7s hubs you can still fit 8 sprockets from a 9s cassette and you have almost most dishless wheels. All it costs you is an 11T sprocket; for me it is a no-brainer.

cheers

Going around in circles there's no need to have an 11t smallest cog on a 9sp cassette,see my previous post.
MTB's aren't touring bikes.
9sp Shimano MTB hub,well built dished wheels are strong enough and offer two extra ratios.
Lightweight rims don't last on touring bike due to the thinner braking surface.
YVMV,so I'll leave it at that.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Whats the stack of 9S cassette, MM's, 35= 8S - 9S = 36?
On a 135, can it be dishless, (never thought or tried / worked it out, don't have or afford to a 9S , not that I want either).
If yes then do you manipulate the position of freehub and or hub between the drop outs, via washers / spacers, need to watch distance (top cog) to r/h drop out to clear chain?

So can a 8S freehub 35mm on a 135 be made dishless

I now have an abundance od spare 8S wheels 26&700, just wondering if I need to have a go, well I would like too after my fiasco with my 8S 700 wheel where plain spokes were used from factory with threadlock, then I tried without .
Need I worry if I have 7S 26's I built with DB spokes at all at all?

I agree after putting a 8S on my skip bike that 11t are redundant as even with triple compact 22-32-42, 11t top is not much use on the flat in all but crits etc maybe TT's, but I also use the whole block at times and more so off road as changing gear at all let alone changing chain wheels is a bit of a acrobatic manouver unless you have grip shifters, that's going over ditches and other stuff with a fully loaded bike up hill on grass standing up