Road Fan

The race managers probably said to Tullio, "Tullio, my old and dear friend! We must be able to test 6-wide rear sprocket sets. Will you provide something to support us?"

Salamandrine 

That sounds about right, perhaps conservative. IIRC I'd get around 15,000 miles out of them before breaking, sometimes much more. The era of 6 speed 126 OLD coincided with my teenage years. Back then I rode about that mileage per year. I was always OCD about dropout alignment and stuff like that, and also fairly light on my bike. So, yeah, it wasn't a real problem, just an occasional annoyance. Practically speaking, an axle might break every year or two. Keep in mind that with this kind of mileage, I'd have gone through at 2-3 rims, at least a couple chains, oodles of tires, and probably a couple of freewheels in that time.

dddd

Whether 6-speeds would lead to wheel rim problems with 120 spacing would vary greatly, so it was up to the bike's mechanic to avoid using too light of a rim, insufficient tensioning or too much variation of spoke tension.
With attentive tensioning, I believe that most of my converted wheels are stronger than they were when they came into my hands as five-speeders.


The durability of spokes has a lot to do with their processing, including quality control and testing.
Also, the purity of the metal and not just the alloy specification. That (and the exact processing), determines the grain structure within the spokes which has an enormous effect on the spoke's lifespan.
That said, quite-good spokes have been around for a long time by now, and I have yet to break even one of my older Schwinn's butted, galvanized (and hard-ridden) spokes.


Lower-priced hub axles also are potentially much better today, with automated manufacturing processes making it much easier and cheaper to achieve better control of things like the concentricity of the hole within the axle. Many of today's axles omit any slot along the threads (not that breakage is a common problem with today's freehubs).
Quality-control practices have improved greatly in mass-produced parts, quality control that formerly relied on a factory worker's energy level throughout the day.

miamijim

A lot MTB 130's had the extra 4mm on the NDS only. This allowed for 4mm less dish. Same with 130 to 135, the extra 5mm was all NDS.

noglider 

@dddd, that's true. Even a BSO today is a whole lot better than those Huffys and Murrays and Columbias of the 1970s.

Kontact 

The post I was responding to was clearly about 11 speed road wheels, not early '90s MTBs.

fietsbob

Phil Wood freewheel hubs, solved the bent axle issue, so Did Roger Durham's Bullseye hubs.. have used both..


Ive been fine touring for a decade + on 6 speed 14~ 34, and 13~34t freewheels friction shifting, wider spacing makes it simple.


And, in swapping my old <C> hub wheels , to a new 130 frame , the Wheels of Boulder axles seem to be less brittle hardened,
than Tulio C's were..




...

dddd

How does a cassette allow the low sprocket to be 2mm closer to the flange?
And 2mm closer than what?

Kontact 

Than a freewheel, and probably because the freewheel has a back plate that retains the threaded sprockets. Cassette sprockets aren't threaded so they don't require something strong to resist the tightening caused by chain tension. Cassettes locate the low cog closer to the spokes.

dddd

Sounds logical, but I see quite a bit of clearance for existing freewheel's back plate to move more than 2mm further inward while maintaining the same thickness.

But I guess that when you no longer have hub and freewheel possibly coming from two different companies or even countries, it should be possible to move the largest cog more accurately into optimal position wrt the spoke flange.

As for resistance to the idea of going from 5 to 6 cogs using standard spacing, I recall extremes of chainline angle being mentioned at the time, something that Ultra-6 addressed. And with the pioneering (bushingless) Sedisport narrow chain becoming available at the same time, with it's added flexibility, going to 7 narrow-spaced cogs thus became more logical in terms of any frictional issue having to do with chainline.
My '79 Fuji Professional still has it's original Ultra-7 freewheel, and with modern 8s chain I detect no issues having to do with chainline.

When 130mm road hub spacing became standard, 7s still was in use and (as miamijim already mentioned) they just added 4mm spacing to the left end of the axle to make everything work (and build a stronger wheel at the same time).

Ghrumpy

I can't think of anything inherent to a freewheel design that couldn't allow the lowest cog to sit as close to the spokes as a cassette/freehub would. A little relief in the rear of the body and a little offset to the cog would get it there. That's in fact what the Suntour Winner Pro freewheels had. The limit isn't the design of the cog carrier, it's the rear derailleur clearance.

Also, most freewheels that I'm aware of made since the 1970s have had splined sprockets like cassettes, or at least the innermost four or five are splined.

I think the reason freehubs got cogs closer to the spokes is simply because they had to as the number of rear cogs continued to increase past freewheels' practical limits. Freewheel development pretty much stopped cold after about 1990 because of axle overhang and breakage, and the increasing dominance of the Shimano freehub design. Shimano's integrated design also eliminated dimensional variables that might cause clearance issues when mixing hubs and freewheels from different manufacturers.

Kontact 

The reason we're discussing this is because I said that the change to 130 was to put 2mm on the outside of the DS while 2mm where gained on the inside by the way the cassette made it easy to get to the cogs.

But it was also done with freewheels for 8. But Shimano did 8 first by using the advantages of a freehub to keep the same 120/126 chainline and expand the cogs in and out equally.

63rickert

@Kontact
Is this a marketing seminar or just a parallel universe? I just don't recognize any reality in which 126 hubs and 130 hubs are equally strong. Maybe it is the same reality where all 130 hubs have the same flange spacing. Also am puzzled by how you present as having encyclopedic comprehensive and detailed knowledge of everything but are reduced to gleaning tidbits from Velobase and asking the oldtimers here. And you worked for Ron, who would know as much or more about all the things you ask about as any person living. You could simply ask him.
@noglider
The function of stainless steel spokes is to be shiny. Customers pay for shiny.
Consider DT Revolution spokes @ 2.0/1.5mm. Most builders don't want to use them on DS rear. I have done that for personal wheels and am not playing again. Compare to Schwinn/Union 0.80/0.60" spokes. Oh eighty oh sixty is just American for 2.0/1.5. Schwinn built millions of wheels with those spokes and never a problem. The Union spokes were always simple and pleasant to work with.
I have a wheel built with rusty no name spokes that measure approx. 1.9/1.4mm. Actually a bit less than 1.4 but they are rusty so the rough measure will do. Built sixty years ago. At 190# I should not be riding a 32 spoke wheel with 1.4mm spokes. But I figure I'll ride it until it surrenders. Eight thousand miles so far and it seems fine. Good spokes. Also a good build.

63rickert

Another post just to point out that Regina/Atom freewheels have no backplate or rear protrusion of any kind. Problems that do not exist do not need to be solved.

Kontact 

Where did I say the hubs are "equally strong"? I said that the flanges didn't need to change location because the dimensions changed other places. Please quote me.

And I do have "encyclopedic comprehensive and detailed knowledge of everything" - starting around 1988 when I got into cycling at 15 and began working on bikes and reading everything book and catalog I could find. But a considerable amount of bike technology history from the '70s was not really accessible to me, and even though I started working as a mechanic in 1990, the older bikes I repaired didn't come with any date information and I wasn't as interested in them. By the time I was working for Ron in 1994, 1970s road bikes hardly came in the door. I learned more about the older stuff from Colin at Cronometro in Madison when I worked for him just a few years ago.

So that's why I'm asking now - to fill in some of the gaps I realized I had.

I hope that answered your questions, though I don't understand the purpose behind the personal attack. Please answer mine about the "equally strong" hub thing.

Kontact 

That isn't a problem that "needed to be solved". I was pointing out one of the dimensional issues from the mix and match freewheel/hub days that kept the low cog from getting as close to the right flange as integrated cassettes got them. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with freewheels - but freehubs made it easier to extend the sprockets both inward and out for 8-11.

3alarmer 

...yes, absolutely yes. No one could have said it better.

Kontact 

Not so good with satire, eh?

I know and remember a lot of stuff - and it is funny how that seems to piss people off.

3alarmer 

.
...not so good with self insight, eh ?

Kontact 

Man, you really love to come into threads and screw them up, eh?

How about posting about something bike related instead of the personal attacks? Have anything to say about 126 spacing? Nope? Bye.

3alarmer 

...you probly missed it because you were too busy pontificating on something.

Kontact 

Please stop trolling me. Really. Whatever public service you think you're providing by constantly criticizing my person is neither effective nor appreciated - by anyone.

3alarmer 

^^^not trolling^^^

^^^trolling^^^

Kontact 

Posting on a thread to continue to comment on someone's person without any contribution to the thread is trolling. Posting your insults is trolling. As rude as 63's comment was, at least it was about hub spacing history.

You're trolling. You're a troll. Please go away. I'm not the fight you're looking for.

Ghrumpy

Yeah I mostly agree, I just don't think the cog position was a problem that needed the freehub to solve it.

The main problem with 8s 130/135 OLN freewheel hubs was axle overhang and breakage. The freehub solved the overhang issue. But the cog position had already been dealt with to an extent; Suntour had been stuffing more cogs into the space than anyone else for years already, starting with the New Winner Ultra-6. That and the Winner Pro had a relief on the seat equal to the height of the cog backstop, Sachs-Maillard's is somewhat less. No reason it couldn't have been done even more if the market had asked for it. But it didn't, so it wasn't.