cheffyjay

I have a vague recollection of Richard Ballantine of Richard's Bicycle Book writing about a preference for small flange. That's what made me want them. (wasn't he also a centerpull- is- better guy too?)

scarlson 

A man after my own heart

I always wondered how a Deore would polish up. Quite well, apparently!! I'd have painted "PHIL" onto it and seen how many people I could fool.

I once turned the disc mount off of, and subsequently polished, a Shimano disc dynamo, which I got for free, and now it looks like a SON28. They're really underrated and a good base for projects, these Shimano hubs. René Herse would be using them, if he were still alive. Olivier Csuka's sitting on his laurels, spec'ing SunXCD instead of modifying Shimano on the lathe like you've done.

Drillium Dude 

And you never, ever miss a thing, Kurt

HF hubs offer a great opportunity for extra detail painting:



DD

St33lWh33ls

There was a guy selling wheel sets on EBay, that’s where I saw them first, from the photos they looked great and they were inexpensive. They seem to be available in the U.K., they had a write up on them in Bike Radar IIRC. The only downside was the quality of the bearings which is easily solved. I decided to go another way and didn’t follow up. Might be worth it to contact them to find a retailer or distributor.

63rickert

Eddy rode high flange hubs in '66 and '67 while riding for Peugeot. Not with complete consistency, there are small flange photos as well.

Go through old photo files of European racing. In 50s and 60s high flange hubs show up but they never dominate. All of the great riders of the era rode high flange at one time or another and they all rode small flange more often.

High flange dominated in US and UK. Pure speculation on my part but I will connect that to track racing. In US racing meant track. No one knows it or wants to know it, US track in 1920s and 1930s was equal to or greater than the European branch of the sport. In England road racing was plain illegal.

What happened with Eddy was American consumers finally noticed. The shark-jumping is ongoing. Vintage bikes from US inventory are likely to be high flange. This does not mean vintage bikes generally are high flange. No one notices.

Johno59

I have always lusted after these, but they are real pricey and my LBS said riding them on the road would be suicidal.

BFisher

Perhaps low-flange hubs became dominant in the US market around the time it became uncool to ride a Varsity?

No one wants to be caught dead on Dad's bike. High-flanges = Dad-flanges?

Salamandrine 

I was waiting for someone to bring these up. They might be considered the last of the high flange hubs. Afterwards there were really none, until the vintage revival type we have today.

Perhaps they are best left for a display case. If you did build them up, a 4x pattern and vintage low tension would be prudent. I suspect they be OK for occasional use. Even regular record high flanges fail if tensioned up to modern Kgf. (AKA tighten till the nipple starts to strip, and back off a quarter turn... )

63rickert

Sheriff Star hubs are completely rideable. Campy did not create them as display items.

I guess all my high flange hubs are failed and I've just not noticed yet. They all operate at 120-130kgpf drive side rear.

No idea at all how much spoke tension would come with tighten until nipple begins to strip. It would be highly variable depending on nipple, lubrication, wrench. I've rebuilt wheels built by others with well over 200kgpf and all the nipples were intact. So nipple strip-out would come at much higher tension. Building at those tensions would not be a good idea for any hub, even if they would take it.

Slightspeed

Those painted hole edges sure look better than the road grime and grease that decorate mine.😀
I have two bikes with gold frames, and a green and gold accented Super Course, maybe I should try gold accented holes, if the paint will stick. On my two blue Legnanos, (with red bar tape) maybe red accented holes, or is that too much?

Salamandrine 

Hey, neat idea! Never heard of Z spokes. That's a new trick for me. Might be a little easier than disassembling the freewheel to get to the driveside flange.

IMO the temporary wheel is definitely the way to go. Old freewheels often require a whole lot of force to remove. That's not going to happen with any practical method of clamping the hub. It only takes like 10 min to lace up a wheel anyway. Not like you have to get it good and true, or even remotely true. I do think it is important to use both flanges. You might get away with the NDS flange only, but I have seen hubs break in the middle, which would be the danger.

Johno59

These hubs were manufactured by Campagnolo for track racing, jmore often than not with 'piano' wire soldered spokes. The idea being to reduce as much weight as possible so as to aid acceleration on a very flat polished indoor wooden surface.
Obviously you can do what you want with them but Campagnolo do hundreds of hubs that are better and much cheaper for the road.
These hubs are near 40 years old and if you can find them, cost about $500 and upwards.

Bianchigirll 

Almost the ultimate HF hubs, a Campi freehub body would have been perfect.

Johno59

For HG hubs they are very nice but they probably weigh 3 times the weight of the Star pista hubs. I think it is important to remember the star-like appearance is a by-product of the effort by Campagnolo to keeping the wheel's weight to a minimum.

repechage

On the West Coast it was the mid 70's. Why?
Eddy was riding small flange.
One can blame the Italian bike style brand leaders too.

Now high flange persisted longer on the track, sometime while was away from cycling low flange hubs became the thing.
Campagnolo may have placed the nails in that coffin as the C Record high flange hubs went off catalog, leaving only pre-built wheels and low flange pista hubs.

repechage

to be contrarian, it was all Styling. The whole C Record thing was STYLING.
The Electra Corsa Record tribute set was a good play, could have used an alloy freehub body and Campagnolo form factor...
Then I would have bought a set.

Drillium Dude 

My HF hubset is a Campy road set. I've ridden Campy HF road hubs a lot over the years and have never had a failure. I've not heard that the Sheriff star hubs were prone to breaking, either, but I have no practical experience with them.

DD

Salamandrine 

Clearly I forgot the . I was joking about the tighten till it starts to strip, and then back off a quarter turn. It a reference to an old mechanic's joke we called it "Italian tight." There was also Polish threads, but the meaning of that varied by location...

Agree they were meant to be ridden.

I have most definitely seen stripped nipples. Stripped nipples, cracked flanges and pulled rim eyelets/ferrules did IME start becoming much more common as spoke tensions were increasing in the late 80s and into the 90s. Granted the stripped nipples were usually the aluminum superlight variety.
At any rate I maintain that these sorts of problems can be avoided by sticking to the typical tensions that were used in the actual vintage days when record hubs were designed.

FWIW I have at least 50k miles on my old campy high flange hubs, and they've never broken. Have no idea what the Kgf is. I'll measure them sometime. My current wheels with hi/lo flange rear are about 120 on the drive side IIRC.

Jeff Wills

Yeah, getting torque on both flanges is part of the trick. In theory you could just put Z-bend spokes in the drive-side flange and wind them up but the assembly would be pretty floppy.

Like I said, it's been decades since this was part of a bike mechanic's bag of tricks. I bet I've forgotten a detail or two.

Johno59

1934 Raleigh Sports before the keyhole eyelet HF was introduced.


It was so common place, that out of the factory they laced them on the high side (the dynamo side) when it was not necessary, as it was on the lower opposite flange. These spokes are the original spokes after 85 years of rolling. The beauty of it is that any length spoke can be cut down to fit - as long as it was long enough.

63rickert

Those smooth tracks do exist. You might be surprised by how rough most tracks are. Even on the sweetest tracks racing involves a lot of rough and tumble. Sixty degree bankings will put some load on a hub.

Collectors collect stuff. Lots of stuff. At $500 the market is about an inch deep. There are good stocks of Sheriff Star hubs and more than a few collectors who could instantly crash the market.

Johno59

If you putt around at 15 mph I'm sure every hub ever made will last forever on all sorts of roads. The question is if you bomb along at 20 mph-plus day or night the outcome of hitting a nasty pot-hole makes the roughest velodrome feel like glass. The Sheriffs have the smallest profile of metal connecting the spokes to the axle I have ever seen. If made of titanium I'm certain they'd be great but at 500 bucks for a 40 year-old hard used aluminium alloy variety I imagine a titanium set would cost more than the bike's worth.

gna

My '84 Raleigh Wyoming came with high flange hubs. When I built up new 700c wheels for it, I got new high flange hubs:

rhm

Yeah, lacing up only the NDS would be a mistake. You're very likely to twist or break the hub.

Lacing up only the drive side will probably work, but for obvious reasons it's tricky.

I have managed to build temporary wheels using bits of brake or gear cables that would otherwise get discarded. Doesn't have to be pretty, just has to his the hub so you can get the freewheel off.

63rickert

400,000 career miles and exactly 43 stitches in damage to show for it. Never do a ride without at least a dozen verboten mechanical hijinks that result in certain death. Equipment older than I am. Committed suicide millions of times by now. Just never going to learn when a part is safe enough to ride.