Originally Posted by
hulagun
To complete the fixed gear conversion on my Swixt Xootr I ordered a Surly fixed/free 130mm rear hub (32h polished) from a good friend who works at a local IBS. I gave him a new alloy rim and asked him to build me a wheel. (He'd already built me a beautiful radially-spoked front wheel with matching rim and Surly front hub).
When I went to fit the new rear fixed wheel, I found that it had a 120mm spacing at the axle nut stops.
Naturally I took it back. He apologized and said he'd get me the 130mm hub and rebuild it.
A month later my wheel was ready again. On inspection it looked like the same width hub, with a fat shim added to space out the axle nut stops to 130mm.
My tire is now noticeably off center to the RH or drive side (the fat shim is on the LH side). I think my buddy just slapped in a shim spacer and forgot about wheel alignment. I asked him about this and he insists he re-ordered a new 130mm hub from Surly and reinstalled it into my wheel. He says he still has the old 120mm hub.... they didn't want it back.
So why didnt he lace up the rim centered on the axle stop width?
My question is this: does Surly use the same exact hub shell on the 120mm and 130mm fixed/free hubs? Is this fat spacer how they can offer both widths, or am I being fed a line of bull?
Aaaarghhhh.
I have the same hub with the same problem. I doubt it's the hub, but perhaps something to do with the frame / rear triangle. It's interesting to note that my stock geared wheel also aligns more to the right. I have a newer Swift with a 135mm rear spacing, so what I did was put 4 x 1 mm axle spacers on the right side of the hub to push the alignment 2mm over to the left. Then I installed a narrow bottom bracket (68 x 107) to compensate.