Originally Posted by unaesthetic
Hi! I'm glad someone here is talking about the pitlock.. I've been searching for something like this forever. It seems I found it exactly ONE day too late.
Yesterday I had my brand new hand built track wheels jacked.
I had 30mm deep campy atlanta rims which I powdercoated frost white, and hand built them myself. Suzue promax hubs.. 18t Surly cog.
Anyway.. moving right along - I was wondering what other details you can tell me about these pitlock locks. From what I gather from the site, they have ones for solid 10mm axels which should fit many track hubs, correct? I'm assuming this doesn't require replacing the whole axle either..
What kind of hubs are you using them with? Where can you get them in the US? Are you using a lock on each side of the hub, or one track bolt and one lock per hub?
Thanks in advance.. hopefully I can build up an equally nice set of wheels again and keep them this time
Unfortunately noone in US resells them. How stupid is that? It is even harder to get the 10mm axle locks. But they are easy to get if you have friends in europe, or if you visit europe. If nothing else works, try asking some folks on this board who are based in europe.
I can answer any question you may have about pitlocks since I have a set of just about everything they make. I have not used their axle nuts on the bike yet, since I am still deciding what hubs to use. The pitlock axle nuts are 10mm diameter with thread pitch of 1mm. This is the shimano/NJS standard for rear axle (front axle is 9mm dia x 1mm pitch). Surly, Suzue NJS promax (expensive loose ball bearing ones), suzue carbon fibre hubs and most old japanese made ones use this standard. However Suzue non-NJS (low-end ones and sealed cartridge bearing ones) use 9.5mm dia axle for both front and rear, and so are most hubs made in taiwan. Campagnolo uses 10mm axle but with 25tpi (thread per inch). This may or may not fit the pitlock nuts, I have not verified it (notice that 1mm pitch is 25.4 tpi). So, if you want to use pitlock your options are dura ace, surly and two models of suzue, and you can use them only on the rear axle. I think one locknut is sufficient but using two will make it twice as hard for theives. For the front axle, you have to get a QR hub and use their QR lock (or use kryptonite locking skewer). Take special care to make sure the theives don't make out by lifting the whole fork. Also, front wheel is easier to secure with a u-lock, along with the frame.