I’m planning on getting an Airfoil rim, spokes and hub. Which hub is considered the best for the Coker. UDC extra wide? Any others?
profile
I’d stick with the UDC wide. It’s easy to get and available in no time if you have any problems.
John Childs recently posted about stripping his Suzue widened hub, so he will either have to get a UDC hub and new spokes, or wait for another widened suzue hub.
Not to mention the cost difference. You could have 10 hubs for the price I paid for one. If mine goes out like Johns did, I am in the same position he is, either invest another 200+ or get a UDC and new spokes.
Anything other than profiles.
Profiles are not massively wide, can’t take short cranks, have reliability issues when being ridden for long distances and are generally the worst thing you could put on a coker.
I’ve got a standard suzue hub on mine. It works all right. Wider hubs are stronger, but harder to ride fast because of the increased q-factor.
Joe
I have the original equipment Coker hub with the internal crank nut thread. The airfoil rim fits okay with the standard hub & spokes if you use a 4-cross pattern instead of 3-cross to build it.
I have done quite a bit of xc riding, but I’m not into big drops (or any drops at all if avoidable), and have had no problems with my wheel, which I put down to the quality of the airfoil rim rather than my wheel-building skills. I know some people have managed to strip their Suzue hub threads by over-tightening, but it doesn’t seem possible with the Coker hub. Also, as Joe mentions, the narrow hub does have the q-factor benefit and it seems to me that the closer my legs are together, the better they work.
So, unless you particluarly want or need a super-strong and/or slightly lighter weight wheel, why part with your hard-earned cash ? If you do wish to spend, spend, spend, I’m sure those nice people at UDC will be all too happy to help you.
Whatever you decide pdc, I’m sure you will enjoy your new purchase.
Regards
Chris
My concern is wheel trueness for braking. The stock wheel was nice and true when I got it and the braking was very helpful in the hilly area I live in. But the wheel didn’t remain true but a couple of days. I’ve trued it a couple of times, but it never lasts. I’m hoping the stronger rim and wider hub, with a good wheel build of course will remain true for a long while. On the braking subject, I’ve heard these reworked Airfoil rims are powdercoated and need different brake pads. Anyone with experience on that issue? I know Dave Stockton was machining off the finish on some of the rims.
Another interesting note. The UDC UK spoke calculator shows that the stock Coker hub and stock rim use the same size spokes as the UDC extra wide hub and Airfoil rim both using a 3X build.
Definately go for the wider hub then. It gives a much stiffer wheel resulting in a better breaking surface and is less likely to go out of true.
That should be 4x with the Airfoil and wide hub or the standard hub
3x with the stock hub and stock rim
It is quite convenient how that works out. Same spoke length, just change from 3x to 4x.
The spoke calculator has had problems with accuracy with the Coker and Airfoil rims. Don’t rely just on the numbers from the calculator. I don’t know if the calculator has been tweaked yet or not to get the numbers to agree with reality better.
UDC Wide
The new wheel set for my coker to be arrived recently, I ordered the airfoil coker spokes and a UDC wide hub. the spokes do not fit in the hub. but a simple drill bit slightly larger than the spoke solves the problem with out a hassle. just drill the holes out and the hub works fine. The hub is wide enough and strong enough.
I went from standard suzue to extra wide. The difference is there. The wheel is deffinatelly stronger. I used the same spokes some how it worked out to fit.
Did you do a 3X or 4X like JC was saying?
reliability issues? help me out with that one. I’ve been using the same profile hub/cranks for over 4 years now, and have finally just recently been able to bend them the slightest bit. This on a drop you’d never do on your coker.
what you see on the end of your profile axle, is the same thing you see on the end of a car axle (well, smaller version).
nonsplined axles rely on the axle nut to keep the cranks on. Many people have had problems with the torque of pedaling hard cause the nut to losen, which riding on ruins your cranks quick.
the profile hub can’t be any narrower than a standard suzue.
You said that you don’t like the fact that profile won’t go any smaller than 145. What are you planning on doing with your coker on -145mm cranks that you are worried about hurting your wheel? on the same note, what cranks do you plan on using for your square taper hub that will hold up to the abuse that a narrower pro-hub-wheel won’t be able to handle?
The profile hub has two issues with reliability. Firstly the keyway problems, which are basically just a wear thing and get worse as time goes by. This kind of thing probably happens worse if you do big drops, but mainly is just the keyway wearing away. The second is the splines wearing out, which happens if you ride a lot. The reason not many people wear out profile splines on munis, is because most muni riders aren’t riding more than a couple of hundred miles a year. Before the KH hub came out, some riders who were doing very long distances on profile based munis were warrantying cranks + axles quite regularly by wearing out the (rather small) splines. Neither of the problems are anything to do with strength, you’re right you don’t need strong cranks on a coker. These two problems are what the new KH hub with it’s very different design and larger splines was meant to fix. Even for muni, I don’t understand why anyone would buy profiles any more.
On a coker, instead of hundreds of miles in a year, a lot of riders are talking thousands of miles in a year. At that point reliability becomes much more of a concern, rather than pure strength for drops. If you fit square taper cranks well, then they’re very reliable and will work fine for thousands of miles.
If you want a narrow hub (like profile or suzue) on a coker, you’re probably going to be going for pure speed, so you’re going to want super short cranks. If you’re going for pure strength, so the profile isn’t any use anyway, because the rim will go way before a hub will on any coker, and the narrower hub will just make the wheel less strong than with a wide hub.
Joe
^^^^^^^
Splined cranks are the way to go with any sort of Uni, but at the moment they are overbuilt, way too heavy, and extremely limited in the range of crank lengths. The profile hub was built for MUni and trials, not cranking out hundreds of kms. For a Coker, you need several cranks lengths as a minimum- 100mm, 110mm, 125mm, 150mm.
Splined cranks make crank changes much easier, and can be made super light because of they are a stronger design. Hopefully we’ll see a lightweight version for Cokers/XC MUni sometime soon. For now, I’d stick with a regular UDC hub or else a wide hub if you are concerned about rim flex.
The early Profile hubs had some problems with the keyway slop. They’ve made some changes and I haven’t heard of more recent hubs having the same problem. The problem seems to be fixed now.
I’ve never had any problems with spline wear with my Profiles. None. If you anti-seize the splines, anti-seize the crank bolt threads, use the necessary number of spacers, and keep it all tight you won’t have any problems with the splines wearing down.
The main problem with the Profile hub for the Coker is that the hub body is too narrow. Short cranks aren’t a problem because you can custom modify the Profile cranks to shorten them. Cut them and then weld them back together. At least one person has shortened Profile cranks down to 125mm and you could go shorter if you want. Greg Moore made some 126mm Profile cranks in this thread. It can be done.
A wide splined hub for the Coker with a good range of crank size choices would be a treat. Maybe some day it’ll happen. I hate square tapers.
A wider hub will help immensely with wheel trueness and decreasing flex. When my custom coker was first built it had a standard Suzue hub in it. The Airfoil rim rubbed on the brake pads badly when climbing hills and under heavy torque. This wheel flex has been eliminated since I’ve had my wheel rebuilt with a widened Suzue hub. I wouldn’t ride a 36er without a widened hub.
The increase in Q-factor is a consequence of having a widened hub, but it makes little if any difference to how hard the coker is to ride. I didn’t notice it in the slightest going from std Suzue to widened Suzue.
I’m using the standard Magura brake pads, and they work fine. No need to machine off the finish. It will wear off with brake usage, anyway. I have red Magura pads and they were too grippy. They would shudder (stick and release) = horrible unpredictable braking. Std pads = buttery smooth Magura goodness.
Yes you can re-use the stock Coker spokes to rebuild with a widened hub. I’m pretty sure that the spoke pattern was 3-cross in both configurations.
Is there really a need to have a splined hub on a Coker wheel? What’s wrong with the UDC super wide hub that most people are using now? It’s inexpensive, strong and there are lots of sizes of cranks for it!
Have we really reached the point where riders are shredding Coker wheel components on a regular basis? We all agree about how incredible the Stockton Airfoil wheel is, and I don’t believe that it has a splined hub on it.
I hate square tapers because they’re unreliable. Too much fuss making sure they’re tight. They leave you always wondering if you’re going to have a loose crank in the middle of a ride.
A good splined hub would be more reliable and wouldn’t suffer problems from frequent crank changes.
I use to have a custom wide hub made by Tom Miller. It was made by cutting a Suzue (Miyata) hub in half and widening it. It’s the same hub that U-Turn uses for his Strongest Coker Wheel In The World wheels. I managed to strip the threads on that hub. The hub was never abused and I always used a torque wrench to tighten the nuts to 40 foot-pounds. It still failed on me. I really hate square tapers now.
I want a good wide splined hub that will allow for easy and frequent crank changes. It’s needed.