Whoa! And it lets you do half-radial, too?
Gotta buy a lottery ticket.
you have to do half-radial, no choices
it’s not clever 2:1 triplet lacing either, the one at Eurobike was a simple 32 spoke 16 and 16 lacing
Extremely ugly fork acquired, plus a 40t narrow wide ring all from the co-op.
Next big thing is wheels. I’ve been keeping an eye out for decent set locally but haven’t had any luck, and who would have guessed that rim brake 26" is hard to find new with decent quality parts?
So I’ll probably end up building a wheelset with Sun Rhynolite rims, just trying to decide on hubs - which are also more difficult to find than I expected (at a price I want to pay, anyways). Very tempted to buy a used set of Deore M650 and doing a freehub body swap. Any freehub body that isn’t specifically 7 speed I should be able to run an 11s MTB cassette on, right?
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NOS Shimano Deore DX M650 Hubset 32 Hole Hyperglide Cassette Hubs 7 Speed *Rare | eBay
you need like an 8 or 10mm alan wrench
I was never very good at the cups and balls and am never going back
Yeah, just use a modern 135 mm hub like the VO jawn.
Hadn’t looked at 36 hole options at all, going to have some Origin8 MT-4100 ordered today for less out of the door than a set of 35 year old hubs in “probably okay but maybe completely roached” condition.
I found that Campagnolo Ekar has some quirks, in this order of discovery:
- the early 9-42 cassettes don’t clear the DS spokes on normal wheels, so I had cold-set the elbows with a hammer
- the dangler pinch bolt doesn’t really want to grip the “Maximum Smoothness” cable and needs extra torque to not be continually slipping and adjusted
- after doing 100km of steep whidbey island hills real fast your rear wheel spoke tension kinda has a crisis of faith from (1) making it impractical to fully stress-relieve in advance
- the early 9-42 cassettes creak insanely in most of the middle cogs and shift like shit unless the freehub lockring is wildly overtightened
- the b-screw needs to be set to have the pulley as close as possible to the cassette, just keep going closer
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They made a revised spacer kit for those cassettes to address creaking . I might have one. But any campy dealer can also request from campy USA.
oh yeah I remembered another one:
- the shift paddle has a urethra hole that you shove a 1.5mm allen wrench up in to adjust the reach, and this is required to backoff just enough to keep it from catching on the brake lever (adjusting both levers together)
Are there good things about Ekar, too? So far it sounds frustrating.
I’ve built a few bikes with ekar and have made an effort to not have it on any of my bikes despite really really good deals popping up
Good things about ekar
The cassette and cranks look cool.
Brakes feel good, like really good. The new campy hydros at the super record and ekar levels feel amazing.
It’s very sensitive to cable tension so you’ll get really good at adjusting your dangler cable mid-ride.
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Some things never change
No, but like really sensitive.
A friend had a Lawwill Leader fork. Looked a bit weird but it was robust at least. The Amps always looked fragile to me. Never ever knew anyone who had one tho.
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Do they have the same pull as mtb, in 12 speed?
Edit. Caught up on all the reading. Kinda makes the guy grafting XT cages onto GRX bodies look like a wasted effort, but I guess GRX has the adjuster.
Ironically the shifting is also the main reason to get it
You get light action with great ergonomics and progressive gearing for actual road riding especially in groups:
Ekar cassettes:
-9-10-11-12-13-14-16-18-20-23-27-31-36
-9-10-11-12-13-14-16-18-21-25-30-36-42 (what I have)
10-11-12-13-14-15-17-20-23-27-32-38-44
10-11-12-13-14-16-18-21-25-30-36-42-48 (new Ekar GT)
Shimano MTB 12s:
---10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-32-36-40-45
---10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-33-39-45-51
I currently have a 40t chainring on it, and I think I’ll try some smaller options there before messing around with cassettes
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Frame crack or paint?
Frame. Saw some small thin paint cracks, scraped the paint away and the tip of a utility knife catches on it.
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