If you're using tire levers to put tires ON, stop. Don't ever do that. They are only for removing tires.

Don't use them to put on a tire, use them to take them off.

Yeah I learned that today. I had only ever watched a tire taken off, never had time to watch someone put one on LOL. I learned the right way to do it today. Sometimes I can be a slow learner.

A 14-34 megarange on a new bike is a freewheel. I would ditch the hub and get a new freehub rear wheel.

If you send me the money, I will be sure to do that.

But some people need to remember that replacing my 7 speed hub and wheel, also means replacing the associated contols and that's even more money. Until the contols fail, I'm keeping them because they work just fine.

meh, I think if it work for you, then no need to change the entire setup, just tweak it where you need to.

This is one of the reasons, why in many ways, friction shifters were better then the indexed shifting we have now, if you changed the corncob for a model with more gears, often that was all you needed to change. However because a lot of people have bought into the 10 speeds are so much better then 9 speeds, you may be able to find shifters for more gears on the experienced equipment market that are in good condition.

Mind you, if a hub is in good condition, but the rim or spokes is a problem, it is possible to rebuild a wheel with new spokes and a new rim using the existing hub. Best solution there is to rebuild the hub, with new bearings. While it is apart you can make sure all the parts, like the axle are good. Later on, if you decide that you want a different hub, you rebuild the wheel using the existing rim on a new hub with new spokes.

Check with your local board of ed. and see if any bicycle mechanics courses are offered, that include wheel building. If you can learn to build your own wheel, then that's going to give you a darn good, long lasting wheel. Wheel building is beyond me, but I noticed my rear wheel is a little out of true, so I either need to take it in, or learn how to deal with it myself. I have some vacation coming up, in about 3 weeks, so I'll pull it off, remove the tire and tube and get out the spoke wrench, see how well I can do.

Not too far away in Ann Arbor, MI, there is a great wheelbuilder (the wizard Steve) at Great Likes Cycles. He's VERY good.

I'll get you the official Wolverine safe-conduct badge.

Road Fan

I completely agree with your philosophy here. I've used that freewheel until lately with friction shifting, and I have to wonder why anyone needs indexing, after that.

It's another excellent reason to get your wheels tensioned and trued, at the very minimum. A good builder will advise you about whether your rims are inherently true enough to be tensioned well. Peter White talks about this issue, saying that the priority is to have even and adequately high tension, rather than trueness to the last .005 or whatever inches.

This thread as a Q&A is a great idea, but it highlights that the answers to simple-sounding questions are not usually simple.

He thinks I suggested it lightly!:innocent:

If you do lose the ability to shift well, don't be too quick to upgrade the shifters. It may just be the fact that the hub is wobbling around loose on a bent axle.

Sheldon's numbers are conservative. I certainly wouldn't go with a wider rim and a narrow tire, however, very wide tires can be used on very narrow rims...with some caveats.

Mountain bikes regularly run tires that fall way outside of the numbers provided by Sheldon. For example, a Mavic XC717 rim is 17mm wide and you can easily run a 2.3" tire on one. That's a 58mm width. However those are high volume and low pressure tires. Most tires that wide are only rated to 60psi. But then most 32mm+ tires are rated to relatively low pressures too.

I grew up just north of Toledo, in southern Michigan, and am a split UM/MSU fan. Trust me, I do at least as well up there as I do here.

That's great news, TKGN! Will look forward to seeing you up here - Steve really is a fine wheelbuilder.

As a Northwestern grad, I live a secret life anywhere other than Illinois and southern WI.

Why don't you find out what it would take to use your old shifters on a 7 speed cassette, which will fit a strong 8/9/10 modern wheel? You may be able to use it as or you may need to take the cassette apart and assemble it with new spacers.

How would I find that out? I would very much like to get a better rear wheel, I heard some rather bad sounding noises at the end of my ride last night. When I would lean to turn I heard noises like the wheel was rubbing the pads, and I had JUST looked at the pads and spacing befor the ride. No curbs, no big bumps, nothing. I just think this wheel isn't strong enough.

I don't know. I upgraded an old bike with a friction system which didn't have that problem. You gotta ask some of these guys, & maybe measure the space between your fw sprocket centerlines-a piece of info which might help them answer without having a 7sp fw handy.

BTW, you don't need to use rim tape. You can use veloplugs from velocity. I have them on my deep-Vs. Very cool, light, and no issues with over 5000 miles

Velo plugs only work on 8mm spoke holes. I use them on my mavic's that happen to have 8mm holes.

I took the wheel in for retensioning and trueing last night. We'll see where that gets us. The front might have needed it too, but I'll do that when I get back if need be.

Got the wheel back today. Shop owner said if it doesn't hold after this, he'll build be a doublewalled wheel with the same hub for around $80. I will likely be taking him up on this if I can afford it after my next race and before the move.

That's a very fair price.

Yeah, if this doesnt work out i will definitely do it. I might do it anyways but money is the key point.

I agree, very fair price.