Tandem Cycling - Help - Hope Hub, Humidity, and holes!

excuse the alliteration, and I shall come right to the point.... well in a moment....

Things have moved on a lot for us since we posted about our steel wheeled "Santana", which has moved on to help out here (http://www.wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/) (thankfully local so we could ride her to her retirement pastures!).

We acquired a Cannondale second user, which I believe to be an MT1000 near as I can tell so far (believe identification is not needed to help though). We got this for a song, just as well since it needed a new transmission, but all in very happy and upgraded with thudbuster post and similar since then.

I had wanted to go for a hub on the rear (there is a flange) but when I took it into the bike shop I was slightly dismayed to hear it has a 135 rear axle and this makes things "tricky".

Now the good news, they recently managed to source me a Hope hub which will take a brake :thumb: (again I got this at a reasonable mark-down I think, £100). But there is a complication now, in that existing Rhino rims are 36 spoke and the hub is a 40 :(.

Could anyone vouch opinions/advice as to cost of building what is going to now be a completely extra spare wheel? (I guess we can transfer the rear cassette, but that's not the main cost I am sure). I am not confident with wheel building and have no garage etc so this would have a fair labour charge on it I guess, although everyone seems to be incredibly friendly when it comes to work on tandems! I am happy to hold onto the hub if the rest of the investment works out well, but we cannot afford it now and I would not feel right asking for a refund way in the future (nor have a right to I suspect). Anyway, need the cash for cycling hols in France if it is not a viable proposition.

The other question, which I thought I would bundle in, is that I was quite shocked recently on taking down the bike from rack on my car, to hear a definite "swoosh" of water within the frame :eek: Was going into the shop for adjustments to mudguards anyway and he drained it so far as he could (no more swoosh anyway :) ) and told me there is a thing called "frame filling" with a foamy stuff that would displace I guess... also he could find no entry point of any significance. Had that been possible he would have suggested small squares of insulating tape to cover....

At another shop I got quite different advice, to simply invert and drill a couple of drain holes.... I was also advised on draining to squirt in some thing aerosol (but have forgotten what! :o ) I am tending to think the latter is the way to go, but would welcome any and all advice.

Especially welcome is advice on how to find the entry point source of water, since I am reasonably sure it was dry when purchased from garage, has only once been ridden in "drenching" conditions, and no swoosh noticed after that even though it went on rack once I think. So the crime leading to the swoosh was outside storage with no covers (we own pyjamas but have had to slit the ends due to the tight storage location). There is a shim or two in the the front seatpost I remember, but this seems unlikely, surely? Any other ideas?

So drill or fill? and after that action how critical is it to have the bike covered if it is raining I guess are my questions?

Sorry to ask for help on two things in one thread and to ramble on so.... I should be less of a stranger to the forums really!

Shall make a post of our first charity run over at the relevant forum when stoker OK's it and the upload is working for me :rolleyes:

My guess is the water entered at the rear seatpost, then traveled downward, until it fill the bottom bracket shell, and ultimately spilled into the lower tube.

You might do best to have the seatposts removed, inspected, and heavily greased to seal and minimize corrosion concerns.

From experience with one of our off-road Cannondale tandems, the Shimano bottom bracket assembly is steel shelled. This BB, will corrode and likely if left unattended will destroy the aluminum frame. It too should be removed, dried, well coated with waterproof for marine applications grease if you plan to continue outside storage, or many rides in the wet.

With the seatposts removed, and the aft BB removed, there should be a means, such as a hole facing forward I beleive in the BB shell where you could get the frame dry and then spray the inside with a product to minimize any further corrosion damage.

As for the hub / wheel. Not sure what you have or need. The 135 spacing for a Cannondale seems odd as I thought they were either 145 or 140. Then again maybe some of the early 90's frames had that spacing, I don't know.

PK

What size (ISO) are you current rims? 40H rims are not uncommon, and it is fairly easy to build a wheel. if you can get it pretty close, then have a shop do the finishing you'll save some money. Wheel building is really a living room or dining room table job, rather than a garage job.

Having discovered I cannot reply to PM yet - this goes out to zonatandem -
we played around with the name Dale, but for some reason it didn't sound right (maybe because we are UK based?)...

The rear wheel it turns out was a 36 and our hub a 40 hole - I am still unsure about drilling drain holes (subject of another post) but do have a very friendly bike shop or two who will help out - I'm garage challenged but would like to be able to take out brackets etc, just worried it will cost me in more special tools etc and having to work outside almost exclusively on a sidewalk or put down worksheets over carpet and complete jobs within weekend or evening is less than ideal... so dining table job sounds good to me!

PS 26" Sun rhino rims - new game plan is to just keep existing wheel as spare - at Easter we were on the tandem club rally and other riders snapped spokes on a rear wheel, so we can imagine benefits to having a spare... suspect budget will mean swapping cassette of course... and believe that necessary to keep chainset entire.

Peter White stocks the following 26" (ISO 559) 40H rims:

26" 559mm Rims
Sun Rhyno Light A very strong and wide rim for offroad tandeming, downhill racing, and heavier riders. 550 gr 27.5mm 32,36,40,48 $ 32.00
Velocity Deep V A bit narrower than the Rhyno Light, this rim is extremely stiff with it's very deep "V" profile. This is by far my strongest 26" rim. 550gr 24mm 32, 36, 40 $ 64.00

the above is from:
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/tandemparts.asp

so they exist :)

May be able to help on the wheels. Have a set of XT Tandem hubs with Sun Rhyno rims and 40 spokes that are sitting up in the loft from when I converted to Disc Brakes. Threaded on non drive side for Drum brake and these are 145 spacing. A wheel builder should be able to convert to 135 by taking out the Spacer on the non drive side and respoking for you. Although it is possible to respace the rear triangle to 145 at most good shops.

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Went Disc brake as I ride my MT 2000 on the South Downs and these wheels have only done about 500 miles from the early days of our Tandem riding so did not get a hard use. Mind you- 100 of those miles were the South Downs Way in one day so Plenty of use then.

So do you plan to get it off road? May take a bit of travelling but Friston Forest- my local area- is only 50 miles South of London.

PM me if you are interested.

Thanks stapfam - it was the bike shop that told me I had a 135 spacing... I had taken the tandem in there for upgrading to a hub and ended up coming away with a brand new transmission and shift system instead, because the drum threaded hubbed wheel could not be sourced..... Your wheel does represent a possibility, though I already have the hope hub (box fresh).... I believe the 40 hole rims would be perfect for my use - since my front would be a 36 spoked rhino then... I do have aspirations towards a dyno hub for the front so may be looking at a future rebuild there.... money is a limiting factor though, combined with time.

Sooner or later we will be heading your way for a ride (did the cuckoo trail the other weekend, not sure if you know that one?) and if you're happy for me to take the wheel just for the rim I'll be interested. Don't suppose you ride with the Tandem Club? We have no plans for any serious off-roading, though elements of it are welcome intermixed with largely road riding (parts of the cuckoo trail ride can be seriously muddy we discovered and I was very pleased to see us through (just!) on our Marathon road tyres!)

Sooner or later we will be heading your way for a ride (did the cuckoo trail the other weekend, not sure if you know that one?) and if you're happy for me to take the wheel just for the rim I'll be interested. Don't suppose you ride with the Tandem Club? We have no plans for any serious off-roading, though elements of it are welcome intermixed with largely road riding (parts of the cuckoo trail ride can be seriously muddy we discovered and I was very pleased to see us through (just!) on our Marathon road tyres!)

Cuckoo trail runs 1/2 mile from where I live at Hailsham and although trails are a bit scarce round here that are bike safe- plenty of routes that are fairly level and safe for cycles. We are a bit out of the way down here. But just to get the offroaders jealous- I have a choice from home of a variety of routes that will give me anything from 10 to 100 miles of pure offroad. Some on good trails- some on rough tracks and some Singletrack. Only problem there is always a hill in close proximity.

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Don't look at the Tandem forum much nowadays but you can always find me on the 50+ forum so post on there if you can't PM me or E-Mail. Tandem knowledgable shops are a bit scarce so see if you can find one- and I don't just mean a shop that sells Tandems like Evans. And I would measure the distance between the dropouts on your "Dale" with a ruler. 135 sounds unusual

In the absence of being able to PM I have replied by email - would be interested to take the set although the rear hub will be slightly surplus now I bought the Hope... Now onwards to the next challenge which is to locate and Arai drum! Have ordered some CorrosionX (Heavy Duty) and managed to get most of the moisture to trickle out of the seat posts inverted I believe, at least no more alarming "Sloosh!" and I think I shall simply have to live with managing the odd inversion of the bike for drainage - no crank puller nor garage to undertake such jobs in.... and unsure drain holes would do the job... though may consider the valve solution at the point of fitting the rear drum.... I suspect the shop I use would do the job at very low cost - they are pretty tandem friendly.