Swapping wheelsets

Wilf Roberts

Im thinking of buying a second set of wheels so I can swap between a road setup and a gravel/cx/light off-road setup. Is there any reason I can't just have a second set of wheels with the different tyres and an identical cassette on to quickly change my bike from one thing to the other?

diamonddog

Shouldn't be a problem as long as you have clearance for the fatter tyres.

The Rookie

Different hubs can have different locations for the cassette and it can require a full index every wheel change, if you stick to the same brand hub it's likely to be less hassle.

If they are disc braked the same can apply to the brake calliper alignment.

k-dog

You might find that the cassettes/chains don't play nicely either after a while - you either need to make sure you use both fairly equally or swap a chain with each cassette so they're equally worn (chainrings don't wear as quickly and aren't as sensitive either).

Wilf Roberts

Thanks for the advice so far! Hmm, my concern was that the cassette/chain wear and indexing could be an issue. Maybe just better to swap tyres? I've been doing this for my son's bike, swapping between road tyres for our road rides and then putting on some cx tyres for our family rides with his younger siblings. I'd just hoped to save myself a few minutes each time. But I'd also been considering this process for my new winter/do-it-all bike which will most likely have discs so that has an added complication.

lesfirth

I have no experience with disc brakes but I have swapped wheels of different makes without any problems on many occasions.

k-dog

I remember Leonard Zinn talking about getting his cross wheels all set up to be interchangeable and it took him a lot of time with shims and stuff to get it so that they all worked with disc brakes.

You could probably do the same with cassettes - but you'd need some thin spacers to get it accurate. Once done you'd be down to a few seconds work each change.

Ignoring the chain/cassette thing.

k-dog

Here it is - http://www.velonews.com/2016/11/bikes-a ... nce_424791

Wilf Roberts

Thanks lesfirth and k-dog.

Beginning to think of and when I get a disc all-rounder I'm going to be better off with just one decent wheel set and some versatile tyres, like the Hutch sector 28s or similar. I'm a road rider basically, but occasionally it'd be nice to do some (very) light off-road or gravel.

My sons bike is a canti braked road bike with good tyre clearance so I'll maybe do the swapping thing with his if the cassette and chain issue isn't really a thing.

svetty

The Rookie wrote:

Different hubs can have different locations for the cassette and it can require a full index every wheel change, if you stick to the same brand hub it's likely to be less hassle.

If they are disc braked the same can apply to the brake calliper alignment.

In practice this is seldom a problem in my experience. Changing a wheel is a 30 second job and the indexing is almost always OK. What is often necessary is to adjust the brakes as different rim widths come into play. Changing tyres is much more of a hassle.......