How much trouble would 27" wheels (with 126mm hub) be?

rjsterry

I'm going to need to get a pair of wheels built for a lovely old 1980s steel frame, with 126mm rear dropout spacing, As they will be custom wheels, I could go for 27" as opposed to 700C, as this is what the frame was designed for. Obviously, there is a more limited choice of tyres and replacement rims for 27" than for 700C, but how much of an issue is this likely to be going forward?

Also 700C is not without it's problems - long drop brakes; anything else I should know about?

wgwarburton

rjsterry wrote:

I'm going to need to get a pair of wheels built for a lovely old 1980s steel frame, with 126mm rear dropout spacing, As they will be custom wheels, I could go for 27" as opposed to 700C, as this is what the frame was designed for. Obviously, there is a more limited choice of tyres and replacement rims for 27" than for 700C, but how much of an issue is this likely to be going forward?

Also 700C is not without it's problems - long drop brakes; anything else I should know about?

IMHO, limited tyre/rim choice will be your only issue. I'm still running a 27" front on my summer fixie (well, I would be if it were on the road..).

Thinking about doing this myself. I have some useable 27" rims and serviceable front hub... if I can ever scrape the cash together for an S3X I might just use them instead of splashing out for new ones.

Cheers,
W.

rjsterry

I've had a quick check and you can get Conti Gatorskins in 27 x 11/4" Not the flashiest tyre in the world, but have served me well. Rims are a bit more tricky. SJS Cycles have a few, but the wording on their website suggests limited stock.

By the way, anybody have any experience of Pearson (my LBS) building wheels for them?

bice

These wheels are fine. probably 36 spoke and strong. Plenty of tyres etc. I recently broke a spoke and simply took another one off an old 700mm wheel.

That said, if you use brakes with some adjustment in them, you will probably be able to fit 700 wheels anyway.

rjsterry

Thanks for the comments chaps. Might pop into Pearson tomorrow and see what they can get their hands on.

rjsterry

Following on from this, anyone know of any decent but reasonably priced hubs for 126mm spaced dropouts? So far I've found some old stock Suntour ones, at SJSCycles, but they only take special Suntour cassettes, which they don't stock, or some rather pricey but very nice Phil Wood ones - lovely, but likely to push the overall cost of the wheel to £150 or more.

whyamihere

rjsterry wrote:

Following on from this, anyone know of any decent but reasonably priced hubs for 126mm spaced dropouts? So far I've found some old stock Suntour ones, at SJSCycles, but they only take special Suntour cassettes, which they don't stock, or some rather pricey but very nice Phil Wood ones - lovely, but likely to push the overall cost of the wheel to £150 or more.

Are you ok with some butchery?

Many Shimano ones can technically be run with a frame spaced at 126mm, by removing the spacer on the non-drive side and replacing the axle with a shorter one. The problem is that this requires the wheel to be dished even more than normal, making it weaker. If I were you, I'd cold set the frame (assuming it's steel) and use a 130mm hub, giving a much wider range of options. It only needs to go 2mm either side, which isn't much at all.

rjsterry

Thanks whyamihere. I was wondering whether cold-setting was the better option. It's an old Mercian "King of Mercia" frame (I think) so it should be possible - I may give Mercian a call for some advice as they seem to do a lot of renovation.

Aapje

You can probably get away with just spreading the rear stays when installing the wheel. No need to cold set it.

roger_merriman

Aapje wrote:

You can probably get away with just spreading the rear stays when installing the wheel. No need to cold set it.

thats what I've done. on my old bike, bit of sod getting rear wheel back in but does go and shifts etc fine.

rjsterry

Hmm, not sure I fancy that on a cold wet winter night with the inevitable visit from the fairy. I have read that when they first introduced 8spd cassettes, they came with bevelled locknuts to facilitate forcing them into 126mm dropouts. Thanks for the thoughts though.