24" Surly Large Marge rims arrived yesterday, and I’m happy to announce that they passed our QC. They should be in stock today or early next week at the latest.
Last night, I laced one onto a Suzue hub and installed it on my first homebuilt frame…made from a Surly 1x1 fork. I’m using an Intense DH 24 x 3.0 tire.
I don’t have much time on it…just a few laps around the block and some messing around in the yard, but I already prefer the wheel over the 24" Alex/Gazz wheel I had been riding in that frame. The increased lateral stability is the most notable difference. The extra float and traction will, of course, be there when I ride on loose and/or wet surfaces.
Dave, what is the effect, in your opinion, of the wide spoke spacing on the LM rim, given the fairly narrow flange width of the Profile hub and other splined hubs that we use for muni?
In other words, it seems there isn’t much spoke “angle” from the hub flange to the rim, as the spokes go almost vertical when viewed from the front or rear.
Would it benefit wheel strength any to cross-lace the spokes to go from the left flange to the right spoke holes in the rim, and vice-versa??
Tire width measurement done at 15psi. Luddites will have to do the metric-to-inch conversion.
Intense DH 3.0: Casing 74mm
Tread 73mm
Nokian Gazz 3.0: Casing 81mm
Tread 71mm
Regarding spoke angle. No failures on the 26" Large Marge, yet. The 24" will be stronger…more acute spoke angle relative to the hub axis. A well-built, properly-tensioned Large Marge wheel will stay as true as anything else available on the market.
Cross-lacing won’t work. The eyelets won’t allow it. Even if it was possible…1) It’s not necessary 2) It would put too much stress on the hub flanges and the spoke elbows…where most spokes break.
Joe and I have been using 32-hole 26" LM rims laced to 48-hole Suzue hubs since early 2004 (I didn’t have any 36-hole LM prototypes at the time I built the wheels). My wheel (now, on the Goiter) is still perfectly true. Joe will have to comment on his wheel performance.
It seems like the wheel would also roll flatter on the ground, since the sidwealls are spread out farther, allowing for a more grippy, smoother ride. Is that the case?
No offense was intended. I’m a luddite in many regards. Should have used a smilie, I guess.
Nor was your request annoying. But, I use metric measurements in my professional and personal work whenever it’s appropriate. Most of the world, outside of the USA, does. So, I make a point to reinforce the use of a more universal (and logical) measurement system. Of course, I did use “psi” as my unit of pressure. I’m guessing most of you don’t think in terms of “bar” or “kg/cm2” units. Or do you?
A high-volume 24" Surly tire will probably be introduced in the future, but I’m not going to give specifics at this time. We still have to use designed-for-DH tires for a while.
Tires are very expensive to produce…especially oddball stuff like the Endomorph. No tooling exists for tires this size. Special machines and unique moulds have to be built to make it all happen. So, we can’t pump out different sizes and tread patterns as fast as we’d like to.
The tire does flatten out and should give you more traction compared to a tire on a narrower rim at the same pressure. Smoother? That’s hard to quantify. I don’t notice much of a difference in smoothness.
So is anyone actually making 3.7" frames? having beaten the crap out of everything i’ve ridden so far (cotter-less cranks and 10ft drops dont necissarily go well together) i’m in desperate need of upgrades
damn, im now im stuck in the middle…cool that that the rim is in both sizes though. A 26" tyre would be so fast but a 24" Endo would be the most beloved in the MUni world since its more “all around”
This happened before with the 3.0 tyre’s…back in 2000 there were not any high production frames that fit a 3.0 and look at it now.
Your photo shows a machined brake track, but the distributor’s website states “Disk brake only”, despite showing a silver sidewall in the (one) photo. Does the 24" have a machined brake track? If so, is that true for all the versions of the 24"?
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