Sea Otter Classic: Day Three
April 20th, 2008 by Guitar TedThe final day of our stay here at the Sea Otter Classic about blew us away, literally! Here is a run down on some more cool stuff.
Niner chose to unveil their IMBA special bike at Sea Otter. This was the design submitted in a recent contest held by Niner. Some of the proceeds from each sale of one of these special bikes will go to help IMBA in their mission to maintain trails and create new ones.
The detail on the graphics is amazingly fine and the bike is a really unique ride. Niner wil only be making a limited number of these available for sale.
Schwalbe is saying they will be introducing a 2.0″ version of their ultra fast, ultra light Furious Fred tire in a 29″er version. I heard it will be yet this summer and will be in very limited quantities. (Most likely test versions) Weight will be astounding at around 400 grams per tire!
I saw this ginormous hub and just had to investigate. Turns out that it was laced to a Stan’s 29″er rim. Further investigation was warranted.
Then I noticed it was a disc hub with a thread on freewheel mount. Cool! A single speed hub. The Chub Hub comes in single speed/disc, or for a fixed gear application. Seems that the larger flanges give a shorter spoke length for a stronger wheel build.
The hubs weigh very little. The rear only comes in at 285 grams! This is achieved by the use of carbon fiber for the hub shell and titanium and aluminum for the fasteners. Chub was showing “kits” with both hubs and a “bit of lubrication” in each aluminum case. No word on whether these were available now or what the retail price might be.
Stay tuned for more…..
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We had some of these at ATA in Cambridge MA, back when I worked there… They’re probably still around, but I didn’t know that the brand was. They’re pretty badass, and high flanges sure are nice on big wheels.
Chub info
http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=6530073&postcount=21
Hey All -
Just wanted to drop a line in here to let you know we are the guys doing the Chub hubs. I’ll try to answer a few questions that were brought up in the thread.
Cheers,
Joel
* Yes, as written in howtoavoidthebummerlife, the original Chub guy Joe is involved. We have partnered up with him to improve and reintroduce Chub. We have improved upon several manufacturing processes as well as upgraded some of the material used such as bearings. The other main difference is that Chub will have a full time support team to address any questions or problems any of you may have.
* The most critical technical advantage is 70% less stress on the spoke due to the larger flanges. This allows you to build a much stronger wheel with lower spoke tension.
* Weights: Track Rear – 296g; Track Front – 96g; SS Disc Rear: 286g; MTB Disc Front QR – 160g; Keep in mind you can run less spokes that are shorter than a normal high flange track hub so this can save some weight.
* Pricing: Track Rear – $225; Track Front – $119; SS Disc Rear – $225; MTB Disc Front QR – $179
* Site Content – we are just launching the site and it will grow quickly in the coming months. Please bear with us. We are available to answer any questions you have that are not yet addressed by the site. You can email thehive@bythehive.com
That IMBA frame turned out amazing!
It was so windy a lot of vendors took their tents town very early. I’m still coughing dust up!
Ted T: Thanks very much for stopping by with all that info. I appreciate it very much!
The IMBA bike came out nice.. it’s awesome to see Niner supporting the sport and our largest trail advocacy group. It would be really, really cool to see one or two frames auctioned off to support IMBA or some local advocacy groups.
Brendan,
We’ll do one better than that. Spectrum Powder Works is painting 25 more of these M.C.R. 9 frame and fork combos exactly like this, and we’ll be selling them to whoever wants to by them (for a very resonable $1149 for the frame and fork) to raise both money and awareness for IMBA. So, while we’re not auctioning them off, this will actually raise more money for IMBA and be a great way for consumers to get an awesome, very limited edition frame for a pretty good price.
Steve
Niner Bikes
Sounds like a good plan, hopefully someone in NE will snatch one up so I can catch a glimpse of one in real life. Thanks for supporting the advocacy side of things, I really do wish more companies were on board like you all and saw the importance of being involved. Makes me dig my Rip 9 that much more
I thought there was a recent thred put up about this topic.
“Then I noticed it was a disc hub with a thread on freewheel mount. Cool! A single speed hub. The Chub Hub comes in single speed/disc, or for a fixed gear application. Seems that the larger flanges give a shorter spoke length for a stronger wheel build.”
But in that thread the gist was that a larger flange did not make the 29er wheel stronger. What gives?
A Question Of Wheel Strength
February 26th, 2008 by Guitar Ted
In fact, hub flange diameter, and thus spoke length, are much less of a factor. Increasing flange diameter has not been proven to show much, if any, increase in wheel strength.
Anonymous: It is not a proven fact that shorter spokes and higher flanges alone make a wheel stronger. In fact, it is a marginal improvement in most cases. What usually makes a wheel stronger than another is a combination of the length of spoke, Hub flange design/diameter, materials that the components are made from, spoke pattern, spoke triangulation, and spoke tension. Of these, spoke triagulation is probably the most important.
To some degree, the larger hub flange on the Chub Hub is going to increase spoke triangulation, thus increasing strength. The fact that the spokes are shorter is a by product of increasing the triangulation and not necessarily the reason behind the wheels increase in strength. An even greater increase in strength would be realized if the hub flanges could be set further outboard, regardless of the flange diameter. Of course, current OLD standards prevent this for the most part.
My statement in the paragraph on the Chub Hub in the post was alluding to the statements made by Chub hub regarding their product.