singlewhip

Hi,

Maybe this is a noob question but....I've been riding an IRO fixie for a while now, and i've just stripped out my second hub. The guy at the LBS simply told me that stripping out the hub comes w/ the territory of riding fixed. Is this true? Is there anyway to prevent this? Is it a question of better compoenents, better maintenence? or does it really just come with the territory?

thanks,
-s

Fugazi Dave

Barring truly faulty components, even with something like a Suzue Basic or other notoriously strippable hubs, if the cog and lockring are properly installed you shouldn't be stripping anything. 99% of the time human error is at fault.

Dersu Burrows

It sounds like improper installation of cog and/or lockring. The cog and lockring need to be REALLY REALLY REALLY tight. Hubs shouldn't strip like that. Have a good LBS tighten the living **** out of the cog and lockring next time.

poopncow

Stop going to that L....BS

jjvw

I've got at least 2000 brakeless street miles on a $35 Suzue Jr with no problems yet, and I would bet others have gone much, much further. Make sure everything is on tight.

battles

Cheap cog, cheap lockring?

mihlbach

I'd bet money that 99% of these stripped hub instances have to do with improper installation..the cog and lockring are not tighened adequately and they rock back and forth on the hub threads, eventually stripping it. Most LBS persons are probably more used to installing freewheels. With a freewheel there is no need to screw it on tight..it will tighten as you pedal it. And unlike a fixed gear cog there is never any backward force to cause it to loosen. Hell, when I've installed BMX freewheels on my SS MTB, I don't even bother threading them on all the way...that happens the first time I start to pedal the bike. When I install a fixed cog, I tighten it and the lockring down megahard and I've never had a stripped hub, nor have I ever needed to to retightened a cog or lockring after thousands of miles. LBS types who have no experience with fixed gears just probably aren't thinking through the mechanics of it properly. They are probably just loosely screwing the cog on there, as if it was a freewheel. If that is the case, even with a lockring installed, the cog will have some wiggle room, which is a bad thing.

Shiznaz

I find that most LBSes around me are REALLY bad at installing logs and cockrings properly. It comes down to the mechanic really.

singlewhip

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. What you say makes alot of sense. The first hub wheel that IRO put together for me lasted a couple years. The second that the LBS put together lasted like 3 months. I'll prob stay away from that LBS from now on. Anyway, can anyone point me to some information describing how to maintain a tight rear wheel?

jjvw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotafix

girona

Maybe it´s a cheap stamped cog? Use a quality machined cog and a quality lockring and really tighten everything. The first time I installed a track cog I thought I had tighten down everything fairly well but on the second ride I could feel the cog rotating about an 1/8th of a turn everytime I slowed down. So I had to retighten everything a second time!