pw_pw_la
Senior Retro Guru
Right then, next up: the rear wheel.
I mentioned it before, but as you can see in a few photos, it was sporting mix-matched wheels for a minute. The reason was the rear White Industries hub's freewheel had given up the ghost on one of its earliest rides.
I hemmed and hawed about what to do while I borrowed @br0qn's XTR/Mavic rear. The bike is actually spaced to 130, but the White is 135. No big deal, as bikes, especially early titanium ones, were often sprung to accommodate the slightly wider, traditional MTB hub.
That said, it would be nice to build something in 130 eventually, and my current plan is to do so with a set of Dura-Ace 7700 hubs. A few reasons:
1. The correct spacing.
2. That generation is 9-speed, so should have no problem accepting a 10- or even 11-speed cassette.
3. The rear has a titanium freewheel body!
4. I like a sprinkling of road parts on mountain bikes almost as much as I like a sprinkling of MTB parts on road bikes.
5. Early Merlin's often came specced with D-A, as road components were much lighter, and at the time the flex was all about how light you could make these bikes. It would be a nice nod to that, I think.
But for now, the White hubs are now both back in use. The rear was serviced by Shawn, the same guy that installed the Racer brake for me. The pawl springs were all stretched out and deformed, so he manipulated those back into a better shape, cleaned everything, regreased it all, and added a couple of extra spacers to keep everything nice and tight in there.
Sidenote on this particular wheelset: because part of initial build plan was to utilize existing components already in my parts bins, I decided to use the wheels that I'd originally been running on my S-Works. The polished White hubs are laced to bronze-colored Mavic 217s (I'm still trying to figure out what bike this combination was originally specced for, as there's too many of them floating around to be a coincidence). It was unintentional to begin with, but there are a fair amount of bronze or brass-colored details dotted around this bike now (from the exposed brazing on the fork, to various washers and bolts), so these rims have really grown on me as an option on this bike. I'm still undecided as-yet whether they'll stay when I switch over to the 7700 hubs.
The springs, even repaired, really won't last forever on the White hub, but they should be fine for now until I can sort the D-A set, and rebuild the wheels accordingly.
Some additional and useful "flare" was added once the repairs were completed and the wheel reinstalled, in the shape of that little Koma rear light. Rigged with a thin bolt and some washers to run through the small hole that appears through each dropout.
(Closeup of the Paul QR for @Imlach's pleasure!)
I mentioned it before, but as you can see in a few photos, it was sporting mix-matched wheels for a minute. The reason was the rear White Industries hub's freewheel had given up the ghost on one of its earliest rides.
I hemmed and hawed about what to do while I borrowed @br0qn's XTR/Mavic rear. The bike is actually spaced to 130, but the White is 135. No big deal, as bikes, especially early titanium ones, were often sprung to accommodate the slightly wider, traditional MTB hub.
That said, it would be nice to build something in 130 eventually, and my current plan is to do so with a set of Dura-Ace 7700 hubs. A few reasons:
1. The correct spacing.
2. That generation is 9-speed, so should have no problem accepting a 10- or even 11-speed cassette.
3. The rear has a titanium freewheel body!
4. I like a sprinkling of road parts on mountain bikes almost as much as I like a sprinkling of MTB parts on road bikes.
5. Early Merlin's often came specced with D-A, as road components were much lighter, and at the time the flex was all about how light you could make these bikes. It would be a nice nod to that, I think.
But for now, the White hubs are now both back in use. The rear was serviced by Shawn, the same guy that installed the Racer brake for me. The pawl springs were all stretched out and deformed, so he manipulated those back into a better shape, cleaned everything, regreased it all, and added a couple of extra spacers to keep everything nice and tight in there.
Sidenote on this particular wheelset: because part of initial build plan was to utilize existing components already in my parts bins, I decided to use the wheels that I'd originally been running on my S-Works. The polished White hubs are laced to bronze-colored Mavic 217s (I'm still trying to figure out what bike this combination was originally specced for, as there's too many of them floating around to be a coincidence). It was unintentional to begin with, but there are a fair amount of bronze or brass-colored details dotted around this bike now (from the exposed brazing on the fork, to various washers and bolts), so these rims have really grown on me as an option on this bike. I'm still undecided as-yet whether they'll stay when I switch over to the 7700 hubs.
The springs, even repaired, really won't last forever on the White hub, but they should be fine for now until I can sort the D-A set, and rebuild the wheels accordingly.
Some additional and useful "flare" was added once the repairs were completed and the wheel reinstalled, in the shape of that little Koma rear light. Rigged with a thin bolt and some washers to run through the small hole that appears through each dropout.
(Closeup of the Paul QR for @Imlach's pleasure!)
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