clengman

Is anyone aware of any vendors that have a 26" wheelset for sale using a SA S3X rear hub?

europa

I'm not.
Are you planning to use that on a mountain bike and do some offroad work? If so, I have some thoughts you might want to consider.

lubes17319

Such as?

I have occasionally toyed w/this idea for my light-duty/winter MTB, but I'd lace it to a 29" rim.
What downsides do you see to doing this?

clengman

It's my winter commuter. Right now it's SS fixed and the gearing is somewhere around 56 gi. I like the feel of fixed gear and I believe in Sheldon's advice that FG gives you better feel for loss of traction in the rear. Problem is I have a pretty hilly commute. It'd be nice to have 3 speeds to deal with hills and varying road conditions.

I've thought about a 3-speed coaster hub. Those seem to be easy to find built with 26" rims. 3 speeds and an enclosed braking system would be nice, but I would prefer FG.

I wouldn't mind trying to build my own wheel, but it'll be expensive and time consuming. If I can find one built for a reasonable price, I'd rather just buy it.

clengman

It looks like Bike island has a set for sale with 700c rims. Only 18mm wide though. Maybe too narrow for 29er tires?

IAmSam

I used to fixed mountain bike on the trails with a Tomicog pretty regularly but sold that bike. Late last spring I got the bright idea to put an S3X hubbed wheel on my "vintage" MTB so I could ride it fixed off-road and still have bigger gears for pavement. I searched around a lot but could not find a pre-built 26" S3X wheel anywhere and ended up building one. With a CR18 rim and straight gauge spokes it was not terribly expensive and there is a pretty cheap converter out there to turn the barcon into a flat-bar thumbie.

It worked! Had no problem riding cross-country or on easier single-track, but I treated my bike as a single-speed, rode the smallest gear, and never changed. Was not too bad on the road either but shifting was just OK - not very smooth.

After a couple months I decided since that bike is almost collectible , it would be best to keep it as close to original possible and put back to stock geared set-up. Someone offered me about what I had in the wheel and like a fool, I sold it.

It was fun, do kind of miss it. I should have kept that wheel around "just in case"...

Mumonkan

SA sells thumb shifters for the S3X.

ive used mine offroad a lot and it was fine, it wasnt until i started screwing around skidding (and never lubricating the thing) that it blew up.

thankfully SA customer service rocks and they sent me new hub internals for free despite the fact that i bought the wheel secondhand