Pinyon

I'm pretty hard on rear rims, and recently killed a Mavic Open Pro on my commuter road bike. The bike is a 1986 aluminum Trek frame with 126mm rear drop-out width.

I went to four bike shops yesterday to talk to the top local wheel-builders. In the end, there are two places that I trust.

One place are the people that hand-built the wheel that I just killed. It was a nice build, and stayed true for three years. They are telling me that I should get a new screw-on freewheel hub. A decent Phil Wood screw-on 126mm free hub from will run me an extra $150. Do the less expensive Quando or Suzue hubs perform well? I don't want to be replacing cartridge bearings every 3-4 months. This place has a stellar customer service and repair reputation.

The other place has more experience with older bikes and heavier riders. They indicated that I should go with a modern Shimano 105 rear hub, that has been modified to fit into the 126 mm space. I would be able to get a 7-8 speed cassette, as long as I switch my old downtube shifters to friction. This place also has a great repair reputation, but they have a reputation for not being as great about honoring warranties on components you buy there.

What do you guys think? I'm leaning more towards using the modified modern hub, but am not sure. Will it hold up after being modified? Thanks.

FBinNY 

IMO the builder is the most important element in quality wheels. So I'd go with the freewheel wheel from the better guy. You have history with him, and know you'll get a good build.

FYI- I'm still riding freewheels on my commuter, though I've "modernized" to cassettes on the road bike. I like freewheels, they're reliable, and the hubs are easy to service. Some will say that they're more prone to broken axles, and that may be so, but it's an easy and cheap fix in any case.

You don't need to spring for the Phil hub. They're are lots of nice New Old Stock hubs out there for much less, from the likes of Campagnolo, Shimano, Mavic, and even some SunTours.

operator

1) Do NOT sink money into a phil wood freewheel rear hub + open pro + build cost + spoke cost

It does not make *any* sense. 126mm spacing is outdated as your frameset. You will at some point in the future be looking at a new commuter bike and that wheel will now be an expensive paper weight with no resale value.

A 105 hub with a cassette makes much more sense. It's stronger and it's compatible from 7/8/9/10 speed. You will be able to reuse that wheel on any future commuter road bike that you buy.

How exactly did your original wheel die? Flange failure? Rim wear? What kind of hub is it? Why are you considering a $150 paper weight?

If he can build a quality freewheel hub rear wheel, he can build a quality rear wheel period. I don't see why choosing one builder necessitates ONLY one wheel build choice. This does not make sense. He should be able to build a good wheel regardless of what type of hub it is.

Retro Grouch 

If it was my bike that's what I would do but I'd use a 7-speed freehub body.

Even 130 mm hubs are dished pretty seriously with a 8/9/10-speed freehub body. I'd think that putting that wide freehub body on a 126 mm hub would be a recipe for ruin.

mrrabbit 

You talked about destroying a "rim", but the whole focus seems to be on the hub.

...what's wrong with the current hub?

=8-)

DannoXYZ 

Yeah, he should just rebuild the existing wheel with a heavy-duty touring rim. Won't even notice the extra 100gm over the Open Pro, but durability will be much improved.

Pinyon

Here are some answers to your questions:

My original rim died when a spoke broke out on the rolling prairie, about 40 miles from home. It broke crossing some railroad tracks. It was a weird break, occurring in the middle of the spoke, and on the opposite side of the drivetrain. I suspect it was seriously nicked by something beforehand, like someone's pedal at a bike rack. I took it easy on the way home, but the spoke next to the broken one developed a crack in the rim, where that spoke is pulling through the bottom of the rim.

The current hub is original to the bike. It is a 1986 Malliard hub with some pitting on the cones. The axle is a little bent as well. I've had three rims on that hub over the last 20 years or so. I'll probably use the old hub to build a new wheel myself this winter, to use as a backup rim. Probably put a Velocity Deep V on there.

fietsbob

Phils will never fail.. the axles dont bend the main advantage to seeking out an old freehub is they shift the bearing to the outside edge of the freehub driver.

You would need an old 6~7 speed free hub to get a reasonable 126 wheel
I had a Phil freewheel hub (with 48 spokes) on my Touring bike rode a lot of gear on the rack touring with my camping gear
on some pretty rough roads for a few years of combined tours..

a solid axle will be stronger than a QR one, but If you dont go that Phil way a broken QR axle is cheap and quick to replace.

New Phil FSA axles can be altered with a few parts.. to keep them, lifetime..
when you fit onto the next frameset.

then again If you drop the derailleur thing entirely, and switch to a Internal gear hub
Alfine 7 speed perhaps?
a number of strength advantages arise from a dishless wheel ..

bradtx

Pinyon, I've used an 8S hub in my '89 crit bike for the last 14 years or so without any problems. It, like your Trek has 126 mm rear spacing and it is a bit of a PITA to remove/reinstall the 130 mm hub.

Brad

Alaska Tourer

I'm also someone how is VERY hard on rear wheels. A few years I built up a wheel with the phil freewheel hub, which still only costs $160 from the phil website and got over 5,000 trouble free miles from it, which for me was a first. For me that was well worth the difference between the 160 for the phil hub and whatever less the others cost. I'm sure cassettes are better, but perhaps not on everybike . I should point out that I went 48 holes with strong spokes. Also solid axle, at my size bent axles used to be be a regular maintenance issue.

Sixty Fiver

It makes great sense on a commuter bike and anything more than a 7 speed block is overkill for most people.

A cartridge bearing freewheel hub will outlast a modern Shimano and can be serviced forever, will not be prone to bent axles, and a 126mm spacing will build a wheel with less dish which is something to consider when you want maximum strength.

Am presently building a wheel set for a 310 pound guy who commutes and would like to tour... the hubs are custom made Arvon's with 48 spoke drillings and will be laced to 26 inch wheels. Rear hub has 4 cartridge bearings and the front will have 3.

These can be spaced any way you want them and we have seen no failures with these hubs and have run them with 8 and 9 speed freewheel blocks... these usually get fitted to tandems and touring bikes.

Bicycle companies have been trying to sell us more gears for a long time, extolling the virtues of cassette hubs and 8/9/10 speed drives when most folks don't need them.

HillRider

I'd go with a 130 mm freehub and just do the extra work needed to make it fit into 126 mm dropouts. The amount of force needed is minor and, as operator noted, you avoid having an expensive paperweight or doorstop when your current frame finally bites the big one. You could retrofit a 7-speed freehub body and reduce the dish below even that on a 126 mm hub.

Freewheels of any kind are getting harder to find and are only in very limited gear ranges so sticking with freewheels is not a good long-term proposition. If you decide to do so, buy a bunch of what ever you need.

Apparently from your posting, you go through rims but make hubs last nearly forever. A 24 year old Maillard still in service? Congratulations! So, why pay the premium for a Phil when a Shimano 105 or similar will last for decades with minor care?

Kimmo

1. Freehub is a much better design than freewheel, and is a more practical choice (cassettes are cheaper and easier to replace than freewheels).

2. 4mm less OLD puts the hub flanges 2mm further to the left than a 130mm OLD, and any OCR's spoke holes are offset to the left more than this. So if you use an OCR, you can have an 11spd/126mm OLD with less dish than a 7spd/130mm OLD wheel.

3. Sticking with the 126mm spacing avoids straining your stays and pushing your dropouts slightly out of parallel, causing your spindle to bend slightly when clamped in. OCR is the solution.

4. If you want to put the wheel in a later frame, you can probably keep the spindle (3mm of spindle in the dropout should be enough), and just add a 4mm spacer behind the left locknut, and tighten all the left spokes a bit.

canopus 

Cassettes aren't necessarily cheaper than a freewheel, I can pay 15 for a freewheel but a cassette runs me 45+. And while its hard to get a freewheel in the exact cogs you want it is also hard to do that in cassette form when cogs run 15 or 20 a piece, are phased, or they rivet them together.

I say fix what you want. If you want a Phil freewheel then get it. If you want a cassette then get that. I would offer up my 126mm, 40h Phil's but they need a bearing service on them and I still want to build a half-step with a granny old touring bike. I picked them up for 70 for the pair and these are the all aluminum shells.

1989Pre 

I'd stay away from the Quando, and I've never heard of the Suzue. The Quandos are just about
the cheapest hubs you can find. I'm going through a similar situation as you, but mine is just an
upgrade, not a replacement as such.
For commuting, I don't think you can go wrong with the Woods freewheel hub, 7-speed freewheel
and Velocity rim.
Personally, I don't know of any other manufacturers, other than Woods, that are making
freewheel hubs in 126mm. If anyone knows of any others, I'd like to hear about them.
I've been using my Specialized, sealed, 126mm freewheel hub (model?) for over ten years in
Boston traffic and it has been just superb, but they no longer make them.
(Having a Sun CR18 rim installed has not hurt the equation at all).

Paul

cappuccino911

wow, a ton of misinformation in this thread! Freewheels more expensive than casettes???? on what planet********** I see TONS of freewheels for $20 and under. Sorry but why are we talking about building a $400 wheel for a 25 year old commuter bike???? You might as well buy a brand new commuter bike, or just a new modern frame like the nashbar touring frame for $80 and migrate your parts over to it and get a new 130mm wheel built. If you are really in love with the old frame then just buy a NOS hub for short money and lace it to a stronger modern rim.

wrk101

+1 Freewheels are readily available cheap.

+1 Spending $400, $300 or even $200 on a wheel for a 25 year old aluminum Trek, financially does not make a lot of sense. For the same money, you could get a really nice used bike. I picked up a nice 2000 Trek 520 off C/L a couple of weeks ago for $340. All nine speed, very lightly used, a really nice bike. Added it to my keeper fleet.

+1 Bicycle companies have been doing a great job marketing the need for more speeds. But for most of us, seven is just fine.

If you just want to replace the wheel, I find used replacement wheels cheap all of the time. I picked up a really nice set last week, $40, Shimano 600 hubs, nice Mavic rims, tires, tubes, cassette, which is more than I usually pay. One nice thing about used wheels, is that they almost always come with everything: tires, tubes, cassettes and skewers. I would put a WTB wheelset on your local Craigs List under bicycles for sale, and see what responses you get. Do not put your ad in the wanted section, as few people bother looking there.

HillRider

Well, I didn't say that. What I did say was that freewheels are available in limited ranges from Shimano and/or are very cheap Sun Race models.

If you have an older LBS near by that has NOS Sun Tour freewheels, they should be reasonably priced and durable but won't have the shaped teeth and shifting enhansements and won't have Shimano indexing compatibility if that's an issue.

What $400 wheel? A 105 or Tiagra freehub laced to a decent rim 32H, 3X can be had for about $100. I got a rear wheel just like that from Jenson and it's been very satisfactory.

top506

Cheap but pretty decent. I've had good luck with them on several bikes.

Top

Sixty Fiver

The replacement cost on the 13-28 Shimano freewheel on my folder is about $15.00 (but I buy at cost) and it rides on a Suzue cartridge bearing hub which is of very decent quality... I do not anticipate any axle bending.

With a triple it gives me all the range I need to tour and commute on and it is also getting used as a tow vehicle for my trailer... have found that decent freewheels offer great service life and can exceed that of many cassette cogs but even if they didn't a cassette is 3 times the cost.

Old Suntour freewheels are very nice and made of bette materials that Shimano's basic freewheels... they give up a little in the shifting department but are much smoother running.

A really good freewheel (IRD) is about as expensive as a decent cassette and is a much more complex unit having more pawls and about 100 bearings to support load stresses... I think freehubs are still overpriced for what they are.

cappuccino911

Phill Wood hub $150 Deep V rim $75 Spokes $25 labor to build $50 = $300 so maybe i'm off by $100 but thats an awful lot of money to spend in my opinion. I agree with others, it doesn't sound like the hubs are the problem, the problem is the rim and how it's built. In fact, there really isn't a problem, the OP said this wheel lasted 3 years without issue; it's just that the 25 year old hub is worn out. Find a similar NOS hub for cheap and let the guys who built the last one build it again. That is surely the most cost effective option. Should you really think you want to go with a modern freehub and add gears, do it by buying a new bike. The Giant Rapid 3 is $550 brand new with 24 speed flat bar index shifting and makes a great commuter (it has mounts for racks and plenty of clearance for larger wheels and fenders). I'm 240 lbs and live on the rough streets of NYC, no issues with my wheels thus far but he could always ride the stock wheels into the ground and then upgrade.

Don't want to spend that much? I still like my original suggestion of migrating everything over to a nashbar touring frame and then getting a modern wheel built. Keep the downtube shifters for now and upgrade the shifters at a later time. Lots of options.

Garthr

If you can use the available freewheel selection, you can't go wrong with that. The cheaper cassettes are easy enough to dismantle and customize though.

With Quandro FW hub , you can get better cartridge bearings ,and you can get better (heat treated) axles. Or just get a Phil . You can keep that hub forever. If you need to use it for wider hub, you can just get a longer axle for it and build it again.

The freehub system is too proprietary for my liking. When the freehub fails or needs service you have to get their brand. Great for them I suppose.

The thing about freewheels, especially the Suntour and Sachs ones , is the cogs are super durable. Any cassette cog I've seen these days is so modified and shaven it looks like it already has 10,000 miles on it.

Gear gears gears ..... how many gears do we need ? Sure as heck not 27 or 30 or 33.

Pinyon

Here is an update:

I talked with my favorite repair shop, which is in the next town, about 15 miles away. They have been around for a long while, do great work, and have a large inventory of old parts.

They still have a handful of never-been-used 126 mm hubs in their old parts trove, and will sell me a top-of-the-line 1990 Suntour freewheel (cone bearings) for about $20. That makes it $170 total for a really good rim ($20 hub, $65 rim, $40 for the spokes, and $45 for the labor).

Some of you have asked why I want to fix it? It...is my bike, and I'm sentimental. The frame is in great shape, even after I hit a deer going down a steep country road a few years ago at over 30 mph. The forks, handlebars, and front tire folded; the stem-clamp was ruined, and I even bent the saddle. All I did to the frame in that accident was add a few scrapes to the rear triangle.

I don't plan on trashing it anytime soon. If anything, I'll probably end up powder coating it sometime over the next few years. Besides, my body also likes that old-school race bike geometry.

FBinNY 

'nuff said.

BTW, try to keep away from deer.

cappuccino911

Sounds like a good solution, only other advice I have is at $20 each, buy a few of those old hubs to have on hand. I rebuilt an old bike recently and it rode great, better than my 2010 giant, it was just too small for me. Nothing wrong with an old bike!