40 spoke rear hubs
 

135mm spacing, 9 speed cassette...Any others available besides Phil Woods, and White Industries MI5?

Anyone have experience with White Ind. hubs?

Planning on running 40 hole in the rear, 36 in front. I weigh 240 lbs... :(

I believe you posted in the mechanics section also. I have the 40/36 wheelset from velocity and I also weigh 240 AND tour with an added 50lbs or so of touring gear. Both wheels with velocity hubs (sealed bearing) and
dyad rims. I'm quite happy with the set and have about 2000 miles on them so far. The complete set was $300 shipped to my door. You can also go with shimano tandem hubs and remove spacers and shorten the axle 10mm.

I think your idea is great. I found an eBay deal on a Phil Wood 145mm 40 hole dishless tandem rear hub, and a Hugi 36 hole tandem hi flange front hub. Everything got a little weird after that. I built my bike for 26" wheels, and discovered that that combination has one rim choice. Sun Rhyno Lite. Then I cold set my rear triangle for the extra 10mm. It was unbelievably difficult. I imagined that moving each 5mm at a time would be no sweat, but I was wrong. I laced them up with DT Alpine spokes, and ended up with a super wheelset.

DT swiss has quite a few designs

Velocity has 40 spoke rims in 26", for anyone else looking.

Thanks for the replies. I might be getting a set of Phil Wood's if the price is right :)

40 hole wheels
 

Well I am not quite as big as some of you, 220 but I have several sets of 40 hole wheels. One set of Whites, 2 sets of Hugi Tandems, one set of German Hugi's Tandem Hubs without the threading for arai drum brake that I just built for touring on Mavic t520's " Sothern Route this summer" - Hugi sent me spacers to make the hub, 130,135,140,and 145 so no reason to cold set the frame.
Many of my friends have Phil 40's - but I like Hugi's which is why I have two other sets Hugi Sports for touring.
Just found a set of Velocity 40 hole Syneries in Co-Motions clearance on ebay not sure what I'll do with them yet, but they are no longer made.

Also overall I also never mistmatch number of spokes on bike - I was stranded without a spare spoke a few years back on a long trip because I had a 40 hole front and a 48 hole rear. I never bother to count and assumed they were identical. Was embarrassing.

I know a place that sells those also, didn't realize they were on the endangered species list...

Even the tandem makers don't seem too interested in the 40 spoke any more.

40 hole hub
 

I only think it's the 40 hole Velocity Synergies that are engangered - I haven't look into it recently, but maybe Velocity Deep v 26 inch 40 hole as well. I don't think we've seen much movement
away from 40 hole for tandems accept for 26 inch wheels. 40 hole and 48 hole still popular for 700c

You may be right. I have just been surfing tandem/brakes as a topic. Tripped over quite a few ecstatic users of the Rohloff, and was also looking at the Divinci V-22 rims. Just a little surprised that 36 or less seems standard in many folks minds. Rohloff hits out of it's range being dishless, but I'n not sure it's an analog for a 40 wheel.

Here is the v22 anyone tried it?

http://www.davincitandems.com/comp.html

One unusual feature of my wheelset is that all four sides, lt, rt, front and back use the same spoke length!

40 hole hub
 

Tom,

That is interesting same size spokes - don't see that to often. The Davinci V-22 have a good reputation - most of the ones I have seen have been 26 inch wheels where 36 hole are okay.

There is a standard combination of 135 hubs for the Phil that gives equal spokes with the freewheel hubs, I'm not sure about the phil cassette hub. There was someone, maybe Tom, who scored a combo between Hugli rear and Phil fronts that was the same spoke length. If anyone knows a formula for phil cassette hub, I'd like to know.

Your idea of having a 40-spoke rear wheel is a good one... but I think I would avoid it.

There are a few tandem hubs available either in 40 or 48-spoke versions. DT and Phil Wood have some, and I think Chris King too. But all of these are 145 and 160 mm wide, not 135 mm. DT makes one model in 140 mm, and you might ask Phil Wood to build you one in 135 mm.

But... if you go to that expense and have/use a steel frame, why not widen it to the 145-mm tandem standard? You will get a dishless wheel that will be stronger.

However, unless you are planning really rough rides (Mexico and Central America, perhaps?), I think that using a good 36-spoke hub (Shimano XT for example) and double-butted spokes (check Peter White's website or a recent thread to see why they make a stronger wheel) and a good rim will be plenty for loaded touring.

Even in the pothole-infested streets we have in Montréal, I have had good success with Mavic A-719 rims. Available in 32 or 36 drillings (silver or black) and in 40 or 48 drillings (black only). I'm only 170 lb, but I have done loaded touring with a daughter on a trailercycle... so lots of weight on my rear wheel.

It looks like I narrowed it down to the Phil Wood Touring 135mm 40 spoke, 9 speed cassette hub or the White Industries MI5, which is also 135mm spacing, 40 spoke and 9 speed cassette.

Just waiting on some quotes.

Michael I basically agree with the 36 spoke idea. In fact, possibly taking it to the next level might be to move to a 26" tourer in 36. This makes everything easier to find and one ends up with a 40 spoke strength in a light package. The one thing I don't know is when people say it's easier to find 26" wheel stuff globaly, is whether that is limited to 32 spoke stuff, or what.

On the specifics, Spicer has a DT 135 40 hole, don't know if it's old stock or not. There used to be a bunch of them listed on the site, the only one currently is for a disc brake. That might sound odd but these are tandem hubs so there tends to be some form of hub breaking included. Phil offers their touring hubs in 7 40 spoke versions for various widths, 3 for 135 alone. And they also offer tandem versions.

Beckman had some reasons for not going tandem width, basically because the spoke staying base gets smaller not wider as often assumed, the reason is the fact that they often have hub braking. In other words the main reason for the added width is the presence of hub drum brakes etc... Presumably this is where the 165 comes from.

My concern is that while carrying odd spoke drillings in the hope of getting more wheel strength is reasonable, it does make it tougher to get replacement parts. The wheel may never break, but sticks or panier parts may still get into the spokes. even if one had to use an MTB wheel for a while, at least a 135 replacement gets on back on the road. If you go 145, you really burn your bridges as far as getting replacement parts. Spreading to 145 by cold setting, while I don't doubt it works great, is taking things past the yield point of the materials involved, and is not to be casually undertaken. People make 132.5 hubs so they will fit 130 or 135, but 10 mm is a lot. The best use for the 145 is in frames built specifically for them, which is mostly a custom issue with singles.

Yes and no.

– It's much easier to find 26" Tires than 700c tires in most parts of the world. With the risk of oversimplifying, I would say that it's fairly easy to find 700c touring tires in Western Europe (except U.K. maybe?) and in the larger centres in U.S. and Canada. A lot more place will sell racing tires (700c x 23 or 25 max.), and in really smallish places, you'll be able to find 26", but no 700c. I suspect the situation in Australia and New Zealand is similar to the Canadian one. In South America and elsewhere, there are a few shops with narrow 700c tires in metropolitan areas, whereas 26" is more universal. However, many (most?) places that sell 26" tires only sell 2" wide tires, so if your bike has narrow clearances, you might be stuck.

– There are few 26" rims with 36 holes. Maybe a few more than 700c rims with 40 holes, maybe not. So if you need to replace a rim, you might go through the same dilemma. On the other hand, a 32-spoke 26" wheel is about as strong as a 35-spoke 700c wheel. Or to say it differently, a well-built 32-spoke 26" wheel will be strong enough. And 700c wheels with 36 spokes are harder to find than before; not an endangered species yet, but it's coming...

– A hub is a hub. In other words, if your hub needs to be replaced, you should be able to find a new 36-hole hub relatively easily.