Disc brakes - swapping wheels without ANY adjustment to brakes/mech etc.

[mike001100]

Hiya,

I have been pondering if I could get away with one bike, just swapping wheels depending on the ride... and thinking about it, perhaps it would be possible with my disc Izalco Max.

Rim brake bikes, for me, just require too much adjustment brake wise to make wheelswaps quick. However, on a disc brake bike... given the rotors can effectively be in the same position, "nothing" should need adjusting. So...

- in order to swap wheels quickly, I assume hub dimensions must be similar. Are we talking ideally the same hub? For example, if I were to have 3 depths of wheels, all on DT 240 hubs, would switching literally be "in-n-out"? Or are other factors so major - such as rotor wear - that I would have to adjust the brakes anyway?

- if I were to run the same hubs on all wheelsets, I assume rear derailleur adjustments would be minimal/none? What if I were to run a 11-25 cassette on a deep wheelset and 11-28 on a shallow wheelset, would I need to adjust then? I know chainlenght would be slightly off, is this an issue (provided its setup for the 28)?

- bonus question - how much of a hassle would different hubs be, AND - could i get it to work? Like if I were to run CarbonTIs on the climbing set... could I get it to work with the DT 240s on the deep set?

Thank you.

[Delorre]

Even with the same hubs, there are machining tolerances, and as a result, 3 wheels will, out of the box, all have very slight different spacings for cassette and rotors, but nothing that can't be solved with very thin shims. it's a one time effort, and after that, it in-n-out as you say. Off course, you have to keep wear in mind. If there is a wheelset you only use once of twice a year, while you use both other wheelsets every day so to say, you may run into trouble with a too new cassette on the least used wheel given the chain you are running. As for the rotors, a few hard brakings should be enough to "pair" rotors and pads again.

[alcatraz]

It sounds like you like your rim brakes set up with very little movement of the lever before the bite. If you simply try to get used pulling them a bit further you can have enough clearance for a few not too differnt wheelsets. Try to keep the width and material of the rims the same.

Learn to use the adjusters on the brake calipers and check that the dishing of your wheelsets is the same or close.

Anyway, I understand you like to expand your disc brake wheel choices. Just saying...

/a

[TonyM]

You will not avoid having to adjust your brakes with the disc brakes. So my experience.

With rim brakes you have sometimes no adjustments at all.
Or more if you swap aluminum rims with carbon rims as they requires different pads.

[mike001100]

TonyM, how much did you fiddle around with getting the rotors aligned (I'm assuming that was the issue?) Did you shim them, etc?

Problem on my rim brake bikes is that I like a wide variety of wheels (pun intended), going from say 18 mm external I believe (Lightweights) to 25 mm external (Reynolds)... and that is just a hassle. Plus an alu training set, and you're doomed...

[TonyM]

For the disc brakes it takes me let's say 5 minutes for front and rear to adjust the 2 disc brake calipers and to retorque them adequately. Really not a big deal.
I don't use any shims.

For my rim brake wheels, it actually takes me more time if I swap a carbon wheel with a alunimum wheel as I have to swaop all 4 pads (they are altready mounted but it still takes time) and readjust all4 from zero. If just changing carbon wheel to another carbon wheel it is just the fine tuning. Still a few minutes. And if they have different width then it takes even more time to readjust the cables.

So at the end with the disc brake wheels it is never more work.
And you don't need that many different wheelsets (you will also change less frequently the wheelsets I suppose).

[mattr]

In my experience, same brand and model *usually* goes first time, as long as they are decently made hubs. So cheap quando or bottom of the range DT swiss, maybe not.
A couple of 240s should be exactly the same. Or close enough to not need shimming.

If you must have different brands, you will almost certainly come unstuck at both sides.
Wheels manufacturing make shims for both discs and cassettes, they used to start at 0,25mm i think. so you should be able to get everything pretty close. I managed with 3 or 4 sets of different hubbed MTB wheels.

[grover]

I've got four sets of wheels with different hubs all shimmed to swap straight in and out. Yes it's possible. CX bike with road tyres, gravel tyres and two sets of CX tubs. Some of them are even centrelock interface. Use the DT Swiss centrelock to 6 bolt adaptor and 6 bolt rotors and you can still use the shims.

[NovemberDave]

https://novemberbicycles.com/collection ... -pack-of-4

It’s very easy to get multiple wheels aligned to the same caliper.

[Svetty]

https://novemberbicycles.com/collection ... -pack-of-4

It’s very easy to get multiple wheels aligned to the same caliper.

Doesn't seem to be an obvious UK/European outlet for CL rotor shims?

[NovemberDave]

Shipping gets stupidly expensive, nothing we can do about that, sorry.

If someone in UK/EU wants to buy in bulk from us and distribute them, let me know.

[TonyM]

Shipping gets stupidly expensive, nothing we can do about that, sorry.

If someone in UK/EU wants to buy in bulk from us and distribute them, let me know.

The shims weight almost nothing.
You could just send them per mail as a letter

[NovemberDave]

They’re too rigid to fit through a sorter, which makes them ineligible to be mailed as a letter. We would also have to replace approximately 100% of them, as they would inevitably tear through envelopes, and get otherwise mangled.

My offer to sell them in bulk for someone who wants to distribute them is 100% serious.

[TonyM]

To get a distributor for Europe, go to Eurobike. That’s the best place for you.

Concerning the shipment you make it sound more difficult that is. Sorry. It is really not a big deal to send these at a reasonable cost to the buyers. Many companies do that. Others just don’t want to make some efforts for small items.

Come on, make an effort for these guys since you made here in the forum some free advertisement for your company and for your products......

[NovemberDave]

Any enterprising person with a few hundred dollars could instantly be our distributor. Heck, if someone put forth a little effort, they could do what we did and just have them made. We don’t have any sort of patent on them. It took some effort to get done, but it was far from impossible

No matter how we do it, the price of shipping will always exceed the price of the product if we ship to Europe. That doesn’t make any sense to me, but if people want to pay it we will ship to them.

I don’t know what more effort you would like me to expend. The postal rates are the postal rates. There’s nothing I can do about that.