Scary, what have been the brands of your freehubs? what is it that you watch for now?

Ive been thinking that whenever I get back home and prepare for a new tour I'll save some $ and build myself a pair of indestructible wheels, with king or dtswiss hubs, rhyno rims and dtswiss triple butted spokes, they may cost as much as a new bike though :/

The old Pamir Hypercracker tool never broke. Why is no-one making them anymore? It seems crazy that this essential tool can't be had in exchange for money. There are some DIY versions.

There is a field repair for a failure of the freewheeling mechanism (in freehub or freewheel). You lash the largest cog to the spokes using bits of wire or zip ties. This converts the bike to fixed wheel so ride with care.

The catch with that field repair is this ........ if you ever coast, you'll break all your spokes. So, for those of us who have very little experience riding fixed gear bicycles, and who might be inclined to forget the fact that we have to continue pedalling all the time, even down hills, we could end up making matters worse.

That is a possible solution, but pay close attention to the "ride with care" warning.

Formula freehubs, both of them. They seem to have the tendency to rust shut ... the little teeth (not sure what the technical term for those little teeth is - pawls, maybe?) don't spring out like they are supposed to.

The warning sign is a very distinctive and annoying "clunk". At first it only seems to happen when you're standing and really pushing it going up a hill ... every pedal stroke, "clunk", "clunk", "clunk" ... you can feel it in your feet. But when you're spinning, there's no clunk. Then gradually the clunk comes sometimes even when you're spinning. Then the clunk seems to come just about all the time.

But you cannot seem to identify the source of the clunk. When you pick the bicycle up and spin the wheels, there is no clunk. When the bicycle is on a stand and you're turning the pedals, there is no clunk. LBS techs and your friends and family start to think you're nuts for hearing this mysterious clunk all the time.

You tighten your saddle because you think maybe that's the problem. You tighten your pedals and crankarms. You tighten everything that you can possibly tighten. But nothing seems to solve the problem. You start looking for odd things like a bungie cord hanging down, or maybe the wire from your computer is banging against a spoke. But that's not it.

And then one day when you are riding with your head down around your knees looking for the source of the clunk again, you notice something ... it almost appears like your cassette is wobbling. Ah ha! Finally you've found something that looks out of the ordinary ... and sure enough, your cassette is wobbling, and that is the source of the clunk. Victoriously you take the wheel to your LBS to proclaim that the clunk has been located ..........

And that's when they'll tell you your freehub is gone and you need to shell out about $100 for a new freehub, which chances are they will have to order and may not come in for a week or two, etc. etc.

I was lucky the first time my freehub died ... it really died ... I could spin the pedals as much as I wanted, but I wasn't going anywhere. I happened to be in Hobart, not out in the middle of nowhere, and the shop in Hobart happened to have one Formula hub which they had got in for something else. I took it, and it cost me $75 Australian and one day delay in my tour plans.

The second time, it was almost dead when I took it just before a 600K brevet. They had to order parts for it (they tried to rebuild it) so I bought another wheel. I've got a Shimano freehub on there now.

Here's a link to UK bike shop Spa Cycles, they sell the NBT2 I mentioned earlier in this thread.

https://www.spacycles.co.uk/products....id=m2b0s71p595

NBT2 is manufactured by the Dutch Gerritsen & Meijers (https://www.m-gineering.nl). Manufacturer's web site has not been updated for a while, so maybe check with Spa Cycles first about the availability. As mentioned, I have one, it works like a charm and seems pretty hard to break.

--J

One comes in the kit

I have a small chainwhip that I made using a slender piece of steel and old chain. If you have a dremel its not that hard. It weighs less than a pound. This chainwhip, plus the cassette tool and a small crescent allows me to remove the cassette. I don't have a lot of leverage with the small chainwhip, but if you keep stuff clean and take the cassette off from time to time it doesn't lock up and you don't have to have a 15" handle (like the Parks chainwhip) to loosen it.

I've considered, but haven't made, a lightweight open ended wrench for the cassette tool. Instead, I use this crescent wrench.

https://sheldonbrown.com/harris/tools/wrench.html

Here's something I made in the garage a few years ago, it's just some aluminum bar stock and old chain pieces. It's nice and light, cheap, and has helped me out on the road when spoke trouble happens. The cassette tool wrench has been holding up well, and should continue to as long as you don't gorilla tighten the your lockring. I would still like to try a hyper-cracker type thing one of these days though, for simplicity.
Merry Christmas to all.

No need to carry a chain whip This method demonstrated below works very well.




Start with a 2-3' piece of web strapping( a shoulder strap from a pannier,handle bar bag or a belt works also), tie a knot in one end.


Jamb the knotted end of the strap between the two low cogs and then wrap once around the cassette to the right or clockwise


wrap the loose end around the tire and rim several turns to hold the strap in place


Place cassette wrench or socket on lock ring and turn, The strap will tighten around the cogs and the rim keeping the cassette from turning while you apply force to remove the lock ring

I like the cassette tool wrench. Think I'll make one but will probably use steel.

Cool idea, nice pics.

Well, that's clever. I almost always have a web strap or two in amongst the camping stuff. I don't know as I'd want to plan on using that, but it's certainly a good trick to keep in mind for emergencies.

Speedo