Touring - anybody running an undished multispeed rear?

i was rear-ended by a bronco a couple weeks ago and my surly LHT's rear wheel was destroyed in the process. a friend mentioned that by using a singlespeed hub with individual cogs and spacers, you can still fit 5 or 6 sprockets onto the shorter freehub body. i like the idea of having an undished rear for the (hopefully) fewer broken spokes that would result when loaded up and on tour. there's also the fact that the bike is way overgeared for my kind of riding. the highest gear i ever use is middle chainring, maybe the smallest cog. i coast downhill. i'm happy to sacrifice some of the higher ratios to make this happen, but i don't want to give anything up on the low end. the LHT's already got friction shifters and i'll probably switch to downtube friction shifters anyway, so i don't think that will be a problem. has anyone else had any experience in this or able to shed more light on the topic?

If you run a 7 speed block you can get a dishless wheel with 145 mm OLD. This is within could setting range of a steel frame.

Personally I don't know why more geared bikes don't come with offset rear triangle to allow for dishless wheels, it would make so much sense.
Building a wheel for an off set rear triangle is no more hassle than for a normal rear triangle, plus you can keep using standard parts so no 48 spoked hubs or 145 hubs fancy stuff like that.

Another option - when I was building up my LHT Ritchey was offering offset rear hubs you could mate with rims that had offset drillings to make a well with little or no dish. I didn't bother and my 32H mavic cxp33 rims with XT hubs are going strong several years later.

You could also build up a wheel with a 9 speed internal geared hub. That would be dishless and if you don't need a huge gear range would be a nice low maintenance option. You'd need to run a chain tensioner with the LHT, but that is not a big deal.

If you run a 7 speed block you can get a dishless wheel with 145 mm OLD. This is within could setting range of a steel frame.

I currently use a Shimano tandem hub with 48 spokes and 145mm dropout spacing in my LHT. Took me only a few minutes to cold-set the LHT to 145 spacing with no alignment issues. The rear wheel now has almost no dish; it runs the same length spoke on both sides (which happen to be the same length spoke of my front wheel as well, 262mm). For chain alignment to work properly, I recommend a bottom bracket with about a minimum of 118mm spindle length.

As a personal note, since my LHT uses 26" wheels, I probably wouldn't do the tandem wheel replacement again if I obtained a new frame. Instead, I would just go with regular 36 hole wheels and not worry about dishless wheels. A 26" 36h wheel is very strong (if all the spokes are tight) and can handle lots of weight, even for a clyde like me.

I currently use a Shimano tandem hub with 48 spokes and 145mm dropout spacing in my LHT. Took me only a few minutes to cold-set the LHT to 145 spacing with no alignment issues. The rear wheel now has almost no dish; it runs the same length spoke on both sides (which happen to be the same length spoke of my front wheel as well, 262mm). For chain alignment to work properly, I recommend a bottom bracket with about a minimum of 118mm spindle length.

As a personal note, since my LHT uses 26" wheels, I probably wouldn't do the tandem wheel replacement again if I obtained a new frame. Instead, I would just go with regular 36 hole wheels and not worry about dishless wheels. A 26" 36h wheel is very strong (if all the spokes are tight) and can handle lots of weight, even for a clyde like me.

See, this is awesome. I've been thinking about this for a while, wondering why this isn't more common. While regular wheels are often strong enough, I like the idea of symmetry in that it reduces the number of different sized spokes needed such as in your case.

Yes, strength is good, but it would also be nice only having to carry one length of extra spokes.

my LHT's got 700c wheels. i also have an old cannondale T400 with 7 spd cassette, but the dishing there is slight enough that i could just carry one length of spoke for it. i hadn't really seriously considered the SRAM imotion idea because i just haven't found many reviews of them. certainly food for thought though.

You can get a Phil Wood 7-speed freewheel hub that when built up has no dish on a 135mm spacing. No need to monkey around with the frame.

They sell them at www.rivbike.com

http://www.rivbike.com/products/list/wheels_hubs_and_so_on#product=18-259