rickbyb

While doing a two hour group ride, we experienced hub failure.

I hit a pot hole and heard a "ping", much like when a guitar string breaks.

Having experienced a similar event while riding a single, I suspected a broken spoke. At the next rest stop, examination showed what I thought was a spoke failure at hub end. Grabbing a wire-tie, I secured the spoke and we rode on.

At day's end, closer examination showed that two spokes had broken free from the hub where where the two spokes pulled loose, resulting in a crack in the rim of the hub.

I bought the Santana Fusion second hand five years ago from a gent who had owned it for maybe two years. We've ridden it thousands of miles so I am not bemoaning the expense.

The wheels are 26 inchers (650c) and may be of this build

https://santanatandem.com/Techno/HadleyVelocity.html

as the wheel exhibits a Hadley hub and a Wheelsmith (spokes?) decal.

Repair is probably not an option as the rim has dings and it too needs replacement.

Suggestions please (slightly used would be OK.)

bwebel

If you broke a hub flange, which I believe is what you are describing as the "rim" of the hub, then really no repair is possible. The hub is toast; and I think your impulse not to try an reuse any of the rest of the wheel is a good one. You'd be wasting money on labor.

You don't specify your team weight and kind of riding you do, which may bear on what kind of replacement to get. If you aren't particularly big and/or tough on wheels then I'd say a wide range of wheels that are on the heavy side of single bike wheels could work. e.g. 36 hole and laced to a fairly heavy rim, like Velocity Dyad. These would also have the advantage of being fairly widely available. I've had pretty good luck getting wheels directly from Velocity USA and from Peter White cycles for more specific builds. If you have a good wheelbuilder in your local area, I'd go with that.

One thing that you want to be sure of, though, is what size the rim actually is. You describe it as 26inch (650c), which is not always the same thing. 650c, which people on road bikes sometimes call 26 inch, has a 571mm rim diameter. MTB 26 inch has a 559mm rim diameter. See Measuring Bicycle Rims and Hub Flanges for more details. I'd think you have 559mm as it is by far the more common.

merzcm

You might want to try contacting Hadley - I know a couple of people that had Hadley hubs crack.

You choices for a rear wheel that has the 160MM Santana spacing are somewhat limited.

Phil Wood, Chris King and Shimano make 160MM wide hubs.

Any of the following folks can help you get back on the road

Peter White Peter White Cycles Home Page
Mel Kornbluh Tandems East - Tandem Bicycles, Tours, Custom Wheels and More
Jack Goertz Welcome to Tandems, Limited. Your source for tandem bicycles, tandem parts, recumbent bicycles, and recumbent parts/
Mark Johnson PRECISION TANDEMS - TANDEM BIKE EXPERTS! - BUY TANDEM BICYCLES, BUY TANDEM BIKES, TANDEM DEALER, TANDEM BICYCLE DEALER, TANDEM BIKE DEALER, PARTS AND ACCESSORIES, BEST PRICES, BEST TANDEMS - CALFEE, SANTANA, CO-MOTION, PAKETA, PRECISION, YOUR TANDEM
Rick Becker House of Tandems Spring Texas Houston. Paketa Da Vinci - Santana - Co Motion - DraftMaster - BP MS150 - tandems -Tandem bike rentals

merzcm

Here is a picture of a cracked Hadley hub.

rickbyb

Team weight is approximately 290 lbs (shhh, don't tell the DW).

I measured the rim circumference, at 1756 mm, it's a 26 incher and I have use this tire for thousands of miles, both front and rear.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks.

merzcm

Wow it was the front hub that cracked? I have heard of Hadley rear hubs cracking, but yours is the first Hadley front hub I have heard failing.

Front hubs are a lot easier to find than 160 mm rear hubs - many more choices out there.

If you want an easy and cheap solution, find yourself a mountain bike front wheel.

stevoo

For the record I have cracked a front Hadley front hub on a Santana supplied OEM build 40 hole.
Many, many thousands of road miles of normal use.
Cracked flange.
Is what it.
Stuff wears out.
Noticed the replacement hub from Hadley has more meat to it past the spoke hole drillings.
I can only guess the change was to correct this challenge/opportunity.
Good luck.

djedgar

It might be worth contacting Hadley (909) 946-6780 and having the hubs rebuilt. I'd contacted them about changing a 32 spoke hub into a heavier duty spoke count, and they said it could be done. I lucked onto a used wheel set, which saved us doing it.

geoffs

For building a new wheel, I'd have a look at the Velocity Aeroheat rim which is considerably wider at 24mm than the Fusion which doesn't look like it's available in 26" anymore.

Monoborracho

I have a set of Joe Young built 26" Velocity Aeroheat 40 spoke custom wheels on Shimano hubs. They might have 1000 miles, at the most. Service two years ago and hanging since then. Our Burley cracked the frame where the Softride beam was, we parted it out and got a Seven five years ago. I'll sell the wheels if you are interested. Let me know and I'll send pictures. I have a couple of sets of tires and the Continentals on them are nearly new. Also have a set of 100 psi Kenda. Sent you a message.

rickbyb

Received 40 hole Velocity Aeroheat rim with Phil Wood hub and DT spokes from PRECISION TANDEMS yesterday.

Mounted Gaterskin and riding this morning.

Thanks all for your comments.

Chris_in_Miami

Thread bump: I went out to the garage this morning to prep the Santana for a ride, and I found this:



Spontaneous total collapse, fortunately it happened while the bike was just sitting in the garage. If it had failed on a ride, I shudder to think of the outcome. Time to find a replacement that won't let us down when it counts.

Artmo 

And I thought that only happened with Bontrager hubs: we had a front one fail in a similar way to yours and couldn’t get a replacement, so new wheel was the solution. Not Bont!

dabac

Looks like the q/r lever is flipped the wrong way in the top pic.
Not a big deal on a rim brake bike though.

LV2TNDM

... that your failure is on the non-drive side. If a dishless wheel, then not so surprising, as tensions should be even or close to it. But if a dished wheel, this failure was not due to high spoke tension or exceeding the flange yield strength. I'd guess it's a fatigue issue that may have been caused by unusually low non-drive side tension. Going from positive to zero tension through the wheel's cycle may be the culprit. (This is another reason why butted spokes are almost always the preferred choice for wheels.)

Or a corrosion issue?

Looks like an old set of Hadleys and I know the current vintages are very different and seemingly have much more meat on the flanges outside of the spoke holes. Either way, I'd say this is totally unacceptable from a high-end hub maker.

Too bad replacing the hubshell is such a labor intensive endeavor and probably not worth it - especially if Hadley were to replace it with the same shell.