Vic's Freewheel Problem

Thanks for sending in the pics from your s3x/freewheel problem. So what we're looking at:
pics of the freewheel mounted, but not down all the way; the cog hitting the frame; a fixed cog fitted;  the freewheel off the hub; and two different diameter freewheels.

Here's my take. It looks like what I suggested: clearly, the freewheel isn't screwing all the way down the hub. I haven't tried installing a freewheel on my hubs, so I'm not sure what happens when you do. However, this was intended to work by the manufacturer. I will try this myself one of these days, but I don't know when I'll get around to it.

So Vic, I'd suggest getting a steel lock-ring and try to screw it down with the proper wrench over the full course of threads on the hub without the freewheel or cog on the hub. You won't be able to do this with the alloy ball-wrench ring S-A supplies. Alloy vs steel isn't happening. The hub threads might have gotten buggered by a loose cog/lockring on the hub while in use. ???

If you can get the steel lock-ring all the way down the threads on the hub (hopefully cleaning up the threads toward the dust cover) the freewheel should make more progress down the hub and clear the frame.

Anyone: would a bike shop have a die that would fit the hub threads?

I have never run into the freewheel diameter difference, myself. What would the other be used on? Freewheel hubs are all the same in my experience, so I got nothin'. Anyone?

I hope this helps, and I hope there might be more help from out there.....

Good luck, Vance

Long Time Comin'

Well, OK!

It's been some time since my last post, I know. You have better things to do than keep checking to see if there's any action.

There hasn't been.

It's been a long cold winter, and I'm not doing much with bikes. I know that I should be out there riding, but lack motivation. It's getting harder and harder to get the clothes on, grease up the rear end, and go for a ride. It's about once a week now, if I don't have something else going on, or it isn't raining. It seems to always be raining (windy, cold, don't feel good, have to do something else) and I can't get out.

Yeah. Right.

But anyway, I think spring is coming. At least daylight savings time is next week. Whoo-hoo! My favorite day of the year. And, it's on my birthday! Which is becoming my least favorite day of the year.

So enough with the complaining. How can you complain when the s3x is available for around $120.00? I spent $240 on it when it first came out, but that's cool. I got to mess with it right at the start, and I enjoyed every minute of it and don't begrudge a dime.

It's so low now, I'm thinking I'll get another one for my Mercian fixie when the wheelsets become available cheaply. Remember what I said about building another wheel from scratch? It's pricey.

The Mercian is an English 70s frame made of 531. It's way old school, and light as a feather.

It has pump brackets. Nice....

It isn't pretty, since the paint's a bit beat, and it's sort of a robin's egg blue color. I don't mind it, because people always think it's some old track bike from 1900 and I get lots of thumbs up when I take it out. That's not often since I have a 53-16 ring/cog on it. I use it mostly on the fluid trainer when it's raining (I basically hate doing that).

Maybe I should put that fake wood vinyl shelf paper on the rims so they look like wooden wheels? I have kept the old cloth bar tape on the bars, which contributes to the decrepit-antique look.

I mean the bike's, not mine.

This frame fits me perfectly, like the old school Japanese frames I ride: tall with a short cockpit. It's pretty amazing to me that they built them this way. How many people have legs that are disproportionately longer than their arms? Anyway, I'd ride it out on the road more often if it had a 3 speed hub.

Building the wheel was kind of fun.... Who knows? Maybe I'll do it again.

So to end up, once again I'll ask for comments and observations on the s3x. I'm sure there's lots of folks who'd like to read about your experiences and discuss your questions/observations/opinions. I'll post them
as I get 'em.

Holla.

A Modest Proposal

In my last post, I didn't address the problems I had fitting Shimano (really, Shimano-style) cogs on the S3X. I had some difficulty getting the cheap BMX cogs on the hub splines. It took a bit of filing and fiddling to get the 15T cog on. This is not to say that the cogs are poorly made. Apparently, Shimano style cogs are not exactly the same pattern as the SA cogs, which is a bit bizarre, since they're ALMOST exactly the same. The cogs I bought are FMF BMX cogs, which are made to fit Shimano drivers, and really do fit easily over the Shimano splines. The Harris Cyclery site mentions this slight incompatibility and recommends Surly cogs for the S3X. Why they fit better, I don't know, as they are made to be compatible with Shimano drivers. Obviously, the SA cogs will fit perfectly, but they are for 1/8" chain. I run a 3/32" chain, not 1/8".

Speaking of cogs and fitting the S3X, it's pretty cool that they threaded the driver all the way across. This apparently allows for screwing a single-speed freewheel on the S3X, which is somewhat interesting as an option. I doubt anyone would choose the S3X for a full-time freewheel application when the SA 3 speed freewheel hub is a lot cheaper.  Having the versatility of easily converting a wheel to a freewheel then back to fixed is not new, of course. Flip-flop hubs are all over the place. But, the S3X has the same versatility of accepting a freewheel, plus it's got 3 speeds. It's intriguing.....

Before you flame me (ala Chalo) for even contemplating the crazy-ass idea of using a single speed freewheel on the S3X, consider the possibility that diverse ways of thinking make life interesting. I've already accepted the multi-speed fixed gear into my biking life (and so have you, unless you're just lurking on this site to shake your head in wonderment that such fools exist). This proves I'm not a purist. The S3X  on its own is a huge leap into the bizarre and the stoopid, in the minds of some of our biking brethren. It's not much farther to go to fall into the sublimely ridiculous, like, ummm.....say, recumbent bikes. But no, thinking of trying a freewheel doesn't mean I'm thinking of a freewheel equipped S3X mounted on a canvas bodied recumbent trike. But, what if I was?

Were?

It's all good. But, really, I'm not.

I'm just thinking, well, century. Or some longish ride where being able to coast would be, like, restful? Or somewhere with extreme downhill sections? That'd mean a rear brake and all, I know. Maybe one of those suicide brake levers and a long cable ziptied to the frame for the day would work out, huh? Easy on, easy off.

It's just a thought.

Don't be hatin'.

Fussing With Gear Inches

I finally ordered a set of cogs off of eBay. The guy was selling 7 cogs and my bid of about $12 won the shootin' match. The sizes are 20, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, and 13. I put the 15 on the Centurion, which has a 50T ring (actually, both bikes have 50s), requiring breaking the chain and removing a link, struggling to get the wheel on enough due to the shorter chain (should have used a half link), fixed the slow leak in the rear tire, and went for a ride.

The 15T is a definite improvement over the 18T I replaced. The 18 required too much spin on the flats and downhills. I still have a 16T on the Bianchi. The 50/15 gives good speed on the flats, and helps keep the downhill spin under control with less braking, particularly compared to the 18T. The 50/16 on the Bianchi allows me to stay in the top gear much of the time, with the occasional shift at the stop. I almost never shifted with the 50/18. The 15T requires more shifting, and I've been using the lowest gear more than previously (which was almost never).

This seems to me to be sensible, because I was riding much like I was still on a single speed fixie with both the 50/18 and the 50/16, usually only using the middle gear at a stop sign, and the low gear rarely. Now I'm still  in the top gear a lot, but I'm shifting down for moderate climbs and way down for the steeper stuff or when the headwind is fierce. I think 50/15 might be the best compromise, but I'm not going to stop just yet. I'm going to try the 14, then the 13.

I preferred riding the Bianchi until I switched the cog out on the Centurion. I wasn't sure why, but it seemed to take a bit more work to ride the Centurion. Now they seem about equally enjoyable to ride. I thought the Centurion was heavier or the fit wasn't as good as the Bianchi, but I suspect that the gear inches were the difference.

BTW, I tried to readjust the endplay on the axle to see if some of the lash on the black Alex wheel would improve, but I can't get it to be as good as the silver Open Pro wheel. Maybe the black one is an earlier run, or the tolerances aren't consistent. I know the earlier hubs had lots of lash, and it improved in subsequent batches. The difference in lash makes a difference in performance. I don't trackstand much, but the two wheels are a very different experience when I do. Also, the pedal bump is significant with the black one, and I find it a bit annoying on a fast downhill. NBD.

Pictures of the New Wheel and New Bike

So I finished the new bike and took it out for its first ride today. It is pretty good. The lash on this wheel is significantly more than the silver one has. I have not yet tried to adjust the cone, and I know there's too much play in the bearings, so hopefully I can lessen the slop.

As you can see, I strung a long cable housing through the top tube loops, and clamped a cable stop to the seatstay. It looks a lot better than the pulley, and seems to shift fine. This was what I tried to do on the first bike, but it didn't work out because it kept slipping. This time I wrapped some cloth electrical tape around the stay and wrapped a piece around the cable stop, then clamped it all together. It holds well, and seems to be adequate. You can see the clamp and tape in the bottom picture. I also used a couple of cable ties to hold the housing in place.

The bike rides about the same as the Bianchi, but seems a bit bigger, which is good. I'm going to ride them both for a while, and decide which one I'll keep. I like the looks of the Centurion better than the Bianchi, and the fit seems as good. Now I'm thinking about switching things around again: silver stuff on the Centurion and black stuff on the Bianchi, if I decide to keep the Centurion. We'll see. 

The Centurion now has a 50 ring/18 cog. When I rode today, it seemed like I was spinning too fast in the top gear. The Bianchi has a 50/16, which seems better. I think I'll try a 15 or 14 to see if I like being able to get some more speed on the flats and less RPMs on the downhills. It will require more frequent shifting. I'm only shifting 3-4 time per ride, other than for stop signs. The nice thing about this hub is that you can use cheap BMX cogs or even cogs from an old taken apart cassette to try out different gear ratios. Those fixie cogs are expensive.

New Frame for the Black Wheelset

Thinking I might build up a new bike with the Alex wheelset, I picked up a 63cm Centurion CompTA frame on Craigslist. It's a well preserved Japanese frame, from '84 I believe, made of double butted #2 Tange chromoly steel. It's a nice silver and charcoal color scheme, which goes well with the black hub, spokes, and rim. It has some Shimano 600 parts on it which I'll put away or sell on eBay.

Strangely, I found out that the axle on the front Alex wheel is too big for the fork.

Duh-oh!

WTF? I'll have to file out the dropouts to allow for the fatty axle. I didn't notice this until I tried to fit it on the Centurion fork. Not knowing whether this was something with the Centurion fork, I tried the wheel on another bike, and it would not fit on it, either.

I hate doing something permanent like enlarging the slots. My bikes tend to go from one incarnation to another, and I don't like making changes that prevent reverting to the former use. I suppose that a slightly larger opening won't hurt anything....

I will post pictures of the new wheel and the new frame ASAP. I'll have to collect some parts now, including a seatpost, seat, some bullhorns, a new stem, a pulley and cable stop (although I might try setting it up with the downtube shifter again), a crankset, and the other bits I'll need to get on the road.

What am I going to do with two 3 speed fixies?

Lash and Cone Adjustments

Red kiosk, aka Jim, sent me an exerpt from somewhere on the internet, written by a guy in the UK who has had some experience with the S3X hub. See the comments from my last post to get up to speed.

I found his comments interesting, and largely agree with his assessment of the Way Things Are. However, I have had no hint of the dangers of "neutrals" in the hub while shifting up or down, or in standing on the pedals. As you may remember, I have been wary of the possibility of the hub slipping out of gear and sending me on an endo while standing. This used to cause me some concern, but so far, the thing has been rock-solid. You do have to be ready for the shifts, and anticipate the changes in pedal speed, for sure. You do not want to downshift too early at high RPMs.

I had to loosen the locknuts on both of my hubs in order to adjust the axles to fit my 126mm frame. The silver hub was set up to 130mm and the black one was 120mm. I had to add or subtract spacers in order to fit. This caused the cones to loosen on both, and I had to readjust them as best I could. I will take Roger's advice, and research the SA adjustment specs. He does say one thing that rather confuses me. He says that after adjustment you want "... some play at the rim..." At the rim? I don't know what that means. I'm looking at lash at the pedal, but maybe he's locking the pedal and measuring the # of degrees the wheel moves in slack?  Any ideas?

I also agree that you want somewhere between 80-90 gear inches in the top gear. I have something in the mid 80s, and would like a bit more. However, my town has massive hills and the bottom gear doesn't quite cut it, as is, so I'll have to live with it. I may even put a bigger cog on, if I can't get fit enough to climb the last leg home without fear of stroking out. The dragginess of the lower gears I have mentioned and Roger mentions seems to be Not a Problem. I have not noticed any significant drag since I've learned how and when to shift.

This hub rocks. I am having a great time riding it, and don't miss my Paramount fixie one bit. If you can, and you think you'd like the flexibility of 3 gears, get one. You won't be sorry. Like the sage said: "If you have to ask why, you'll never understand."

I have been thinking about putting the second wheelset on the Paramount, or maybe my classic Mercian frame? Blasphemy? Who cares?

Thanks for participating in the discussion. I do appreciate it and hope that we can be of help to anyone interested. Any comments are welcome! Don't be shy! Let us know what you think and what you know.