142mm Through Axle Hubs for Touring

[hamish]

I was looking at the latest version of the Surly Ogre/Troll. I have an old, Rohloffed, Troll and have been thinking about changing to an Ogre.

Their 'dropouts' take 135mm and 142mm hubs. I suspect they work best with 142mm so... Are there any 142mm through axle hubs that are up to the job for touring?

[thelawnet]

I don't think that's true.

The Surly has a design that takes pretty much any hub standard

https://surlybikes.com/blog/ogre_sauce

However none of them are particularly ideal.

If you are not using a Rohloff, I'd probably go for a Shimano M756 hub, which is 135 X qr9. On the basis that the supposed extra stiffness of the 142 X ta12 isn't going to be realised in that frame.

[hamish]

Yes.. The new Surly frames with Gnot Boost take both... But to use 135mm you have to use adaptors that are a bit more of a faff and introduce a weakness relative to an normal 135mm dropout without small alloy widgets. Also the 142mm hubs drop out vertically where as the 135 tend to go I from the back... which is more faff.

I agree the rigidity benefits aren't the main thing on a Gnotboost frame- but I think the 142mm through axle will be stronger and simpler than 135mm with adaptors.

The Jury is still out as to whether I'd transfer the Rohloff to an Ogre. I may be suffering fro Rohloff fatigue. I'm not sure.

[NickJP]

The last touring bike I put together I used Onyx thru-axle MTB disc hubs. They've been completely problem-free so far, though that's only about 18 months of use so far. They're extremely nicely made, and also extremely expensive - same sort of price range as Phil Wood and Chris King. I mainly used them because the freehub mechanism is completely silent, as it uses a sprag clutch.

[rjb]

This could be of interest to tandem owners who have oln dimensions of 145mm. Could you use a 142 through axle with a qr adaptor and possibly a 1 mm washer either side to get the spacing correct ? I'm just thinking outside the box here as I have no idea if it's feasible.

[Brucey]

the sprag clutches in Onyx hubs give the hub a distinctly spongy feeling in the low gears especially. Not everyone's cup of tea that; hubs with pawls in feel a lot more direct.

The spongy feeling is shared with the gone but not quite forgotten shimano 'silentclutch' hubs. The idea has come around again and there are new slightly different silentclutch 'scylence' freehubs in the offing once more.https://bikerumor.com/2016/01/26/shimano-patent-shows-silent-ring-drive-hub-internals-that-could-be-the-next-dura-ace/ https://bike.shimano.com/en-EU/technologies/component/details/new-tech-scylence.htmlGawd knows if they are any good or not; the original ones not only felt spongy, they often broke in hard use too. The new ones remind me of Chris King freehubs; these are very clever but if water gets inside they soon turn themselves into a very expensive piece of scrap metal. Shimano claim no spongy feeling with their new design (which appears to generate axial clamping loads to transmit the drive) but the wearing parts appear to be made of aluminium which does not bode well.

The reason for the spongy feeling is that with many so-called 'silent clutch' designs the drive is transmitted by a wedging action that creates enormous (usually radial) forces in the mechanism. This has several consequences beyond the sponginess; the stresses are so high that the mechanism is at risk of breakage unless it is very heavily built. The heavier build makes the mechanism heavy. Onyx hubs are about the same weight as standard ( ~ £30 a go) shimano freehubs, and original shimano silent clutch hubs were heavier than that.

Shimano will have tested their new design for sure, but probably they will have tested it in California, where it doesn't rain much. I reserve judgement about whether or not this scheme will work in UK conditions....

The daft thing about all this is that it is all a complete waste of time; if you want a silent freehub you can have one; just use SFG in a standard shimano freehub body. This also stops the mechanism from failing due to the weather too; good all round.

cheers

[thelawnet]

The spongy feeling is shared with the gone but not quite forgotten shimano 'silentclutch' hubs. The idea has come around again and there are new slightly different silentclutch 'scylence' freehubs in the offing once more.https://bikerumor.com/2016/01/26/shimano-patent-shows-silent-ring-drive-hub-internals-that-could-be-the-next-dura-ace/ https://bike.shimano.com/en-EU/technologies/component/details/new-tech-scylence.htmlGawd knows if they are any good or not; the original ones not only felt spongy, they often broke in hard use too. The new ones remind me of Chris King freehubs; these are very clever but if water gets inside they soon turn themselves into a very expensive piece of scrap metal. Shimano claim no spongy feeling with their new design (which appears to generate axial clamping loads to transmit the drive) but the wearing parts appear to be made of aluminium which does not bode well.

These have now been cancelled. Not happening.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/shimanos- ... lable.html

Patent issues? Rubbish?

who knows.

[LittleGreyCat]

SFG?
Looked it up and it appears to be Scouting For Girls.
Or possibly Special Forces Group (Belgium). At least they are usually silent.

Edit: Could be Seriously Fick Grease?

[Brucey]

Semi Fluid Grease

cheers

[RRSODL]

I was looking at the latest version of the Surly Ogre/Troll. I have an old, Rohloffed, Troll and have been thinking about changing to an Ogre.

Their 'dropouts' take 135mm and 142mm hubs. I suspect they work best with 142mm so... Are there any 142mm through axle hubs that are up to the job for touring?

I built a Surly Ogre touring (do it all bike ) 5 months ago. I went for the boost Hope Pro hubs, they are doing OK so far but I think I prefer the Novatec hubs I had before, roll a lot better, hard to find though.

[Gattonero]

... Are there any 142mm through axle hubs that are up to the job for touring?

if you're thinking about strength, they've been developed for MTB's to take 10-20ft drops...