Okay, no prizes will be awarded, but it'll be fun to see if anyone gets this one. (No fair Googling! Use yer own gray matter!)
Now on with the hardware pictured here. I needed a front hub to go along with the rear I had. Welcome to another rear hub! (You are wondering something now. I can feel it!) Yes, another rear hub folks. You see, fat bikes nowadays use 135 O.L.D. dimension hubs for their front ends. These make for stronger wheel builds by allowing for a symmetrical wheel. No dishing for a front disc. So, that being the mountain bike standard for rear hub spacing, you get yourself a rear hub for a front hub on a fat bike. So, the smaller hub to the right is actually a rear mountain bike single speed hub and that is dwarfed by the ginormous 170 O.L.D. rear fat bike hub. Both spin on super-smooth Phil Wood bearings and are carved from aluminum and polished up like jewelry. These will make a nice looking and long lasting fat bike wheel set for The Snow Dog.
The Phil Hubs will be laced with Sapim spokes to the Rolling Darryl rims that I have, and a surprise rim strip provided by Ben Witt will be the crowning touch to these spectacular wheels. (Thanks for the perfect selection, Ben!)
Just a Mukluk frame and fork is all!
ha! Well, hopefully it won't be all that long from now. We still have a fair bit of winter left to go now and I am sure that when "it" gets here I will have it together in no time.
I sure hope that it will get done before Frostbike. I'd love to drag it up to Northfield and do some trail riding up there and then hit up the show, with maybe an after ride on some of the Twin Cities stuff. We'll see.
I'll go out on a limb and guess some Nugity roots on the name. What about the Great White Buffalo?
ReplyDeleteSingle speeding on a big fat tire? What kind of set up are you running?
ReplyDelete@Travel Gravel: Nope! Not Nugent.
ReplyDelete@tom: It doesn't necessarily have to be a single speed hub. It could have been any hub with a 135mm O.L.D. Just to be clear, I can not swap hubs front to rear on The Snow Dog. The front uses rear spacing, but the rear uses a 170mm O.L.D. which is proprietary, and can not be swapped out unless the other wheel is also 170mm O.L.D.
Classic Rush. I think it is Bytor, The snow dog ?
ReplyDelete@Eric A: Ding! Ding! We have a winner! It is a Rush song titled "Bytor And The Snow Dog", which was a classic track on the first U.S. issued Rush live album.
ReplyDeleteGood job!
If I were to guess the main reason for the 135mm front hub popularity on fat bikes is not for strength, but to allow room for the tire to pass the dropout and the front brake. Also, it is more common to see a 135 spacing with front hub disk brake spacing, requiring a hub like the Paul's. Salsa is unique in using the non offset 135mm rear hub in the front. My guess is that fork was designed for mountain bike adventures, allowing to swap wheels in emergencies.
ReplyDelete@Charli Tri: Could be, but all the fat bike stuff seems to be gravitating to non-offset, 135mm O.L.D. front forks, ala Fatback's carbon fork, and the like.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but they use the front hub brake standard. That was my only point. It seems odd to me to run a rear hub on the front for no reason. With the pugs and the ability to swap back and forth it makes perfect sense, but how do explain to someone,"yeah, I could throw on a freewheel on the front, but I can't use it." I assume the enabler was originally designed with summer adventures on a regular mountain bike, but compatible with the fat tires.
ReplyDelete@ Charly Tri:I think the reasoning was that there are far more 135 O.L.D. rear hubs than front ones in existence. :) The choice was mine to have a more expensive Phil custom front 135mm hub made, or to just run the rear SS hub. Obviously vanity would be the only reason to run with the custom front Phil, so I just got the less expensive rear SS hub which will accomplish the same thing in the end.
ReplyDeleteIs that a Waltz cap you are wearing?
ReplyDelete@Rich: Yes. It is the wool ear flap model. They make these without ear flaps and in several patterns in wool as well. Highly recommended!
ReplyDeleteI ditched the original for and got the 100mm spaced pugs fork. Used a Dt Edco disc hub from a bike swap and the setup is great. I can also carry the bike on the wifes 1990 Old Cutlass Ciera Roof RAck.
ReplyDeleteari
There is also an adapter from Salsa Cycles to convert the rear to 135mm
ReplyDelete