Originally Posted by
CF4L
infact, no I have not. However I was under the impression that the change would be done in the pits between races. I have been told that lots of riders don't use lock rings to make things easier/quicker, so I assumed they were changing stuff more than just flipping wheels. and aren't most high end off the shelf wheels single sided? I alsways assumed they were...
Everything you have said is true. But that doesn't mean that a double-sided hub is useless. It will certainly make changing gearing a lot easier. Rather than have to take a cog off and put a new one on (even without a lockring), you just flip the wheel around. Granted it only gives you two different gear ratios but it's better than single-sided hubs. Also there are times when you don't have much time inbetween races, so you could set up your wheels to have the correct gear ratios before hand, and it would only take you a minute or two to switch.
I really don't know why most high end COTS wheels are single-sided.