Here is a pair of unknown hubs I bought off eBay a couple of years ago, described as "vintage".
I got them for a 1951 Claud Butler I'm building and the widths are pretty close to what the frame is. If the rear hub is a poor design, should I substitute a more conventional modern one? This is a budget project, so I'm not striving for exact originality, just something that looks close.
-- John Betmanis Woodstock, Ontario Canada
On 03/01/2011 6:37 PM, Dale B. Phelps wrote:
> wow! I'd always understood that the cause of broken spokes was too little tension, and that wheels should be built tight, not "loose."
> I've also on rear wheels never (repeat NEVER) have had a spoke break on the drive side without stuffing the derailleur into them (I confess THAT happened once.) Drive side spokes s/b very evenly matched in tension and very tight, with non-drive side spokes what 2/3 the tension of drive side?
> And (for ME) it is also hard to believe that a 7mm outboard difference on the non-driveside rates an almost vitriolic regard (yes Harvey I was impressed by what I read.)
>
> I don't know if other CR members have the experience of bent rear spindles (since it does not rotate, it is a spindle, not an axle) but I have, and even when I was a svelte 170 pounder. Now that I am 200 pounds, I thought this "oddball" 40 hole rear hub with the more-distributed load bearing would perhaps better endure this big beefy boy's, never again bending another surprisingly pricey campy hub spindles.
>
> I know that opinionism about wheels is rife, and I would never presume myself to be a comprehensively-minded wheel builder, but I now wonder about the issues that Harvey so staggeringly articulated, and before I take a few hubs and rims (and hopefully, proper-enough-looking modern spokes sourced from one of our favorite suppliers) out to Santa Clara for some building, I'd like to hear from others about use of this one hub in particular (the bottom one in the below foto):
>
> http://www.wooljersey.com/
>
> IS the 7mm offset of the outboard flange rear hub I have more than a properly-built, properly-tensioned wheel can bear? CAN a skilled master-builder work with such a flawed "dumb design"? Or should this hub be kept in a case (or offered to a collector) as another example of what poor design ideas existed prior to 2011?
>
> Dale Phelps
> Montagna lunga Colorado USA
>
> From: Harvey Sachs<hmsachs@verizon.net>
>
> Until this morning, I'd assumed that Normandy/Atom was the only widely distributed hub with as dumb a design for derailleur bikes as the lower one in Dale's picture. It's good to know that campagnolo had one of these, and wish I had one to add to my small collection of Campag's worst designs, together with the Gran Trashmo, the single-pulley Sport RD, and the various "matchbox" or plunger FDs. The ones designed to grit up the sliding contact.
>
> In Dale's picture, I'm talking about the lower one, the one with the left flange all the way outboard, for the best possible bracing, eh? NO. All the way outboard, for the highest possible tension on the nearly vertical right-side spokes. My first Sears came with such a beast, which served well - like a mule - for teaching patience. Because one got pretty good at the drill of removing the (two-notch) FW to replace the spokes that popped.
>
> I can only assume that these hubs, like the vermiform appendix, were relics of some earlier, functional, design. Like maybe a 110 OLN for single-speed FW. Then respaced at some marketer's command, to get a product out the door when those crazy Murakins wanted some absurd 5-speed FW.
>
> Build it up, Dale, for someone you really, really, dislike. Or not, in the spirit of wishing all a wonderful New Year. Like some other Campag parts, nice eye candy for the brain to reject.