I was wondering if there was a left and right side to suzue hubs. I was putting my cranks on and realized that I was turning the ratchet to the left to tighten the cranks. Could this cause a problem? Do I need to turn the seat around, and swith the cranks around?
Hub doesnt matter at all. you may however need to turn your seat around if the cranks are on the wrong sides.
I got the left crank on my left and right on my right. I learned my lesson about wrong sides, when I ruined 4 cranks by putting the pedals on the wrong sides. So, I decided to make sure I wouldn’t ruin anything else. Thanks for your help.
-Hugh
The threads on the hub itself are both right-handed (normal) threads. The hub has a right side when you look at the lettering “Suzue”. If you can read it properly, the hub’s right is on your right. However, this is only useful from the viewpoint of a very detail-conscious wheel builder (including yours truly); functionally-speaking, the hub works just as well either way.
The cranks are left and right because the pedal threads on the left crank are left-handed (they tighten counter-clockwise), whereas the pedal threads on the right crank are right-handed (they tighten clockwise). This assumes you have the pedal between you and the crank.
On the wide hubs I label the right side because the lettering has been obliterated. By knowing which side is right I can map the spoke tension in a consistent way.
I totally agree.
Perhaps I am taking it too far, but I always build my wheels so the Suzue name is seen if you look through the valve hole.
I treat the fatter side of the KH hub as the right hand side because KH told me it is that shape because that part of the hub it is manufactured by bike people & the fatter side would be on the chain side.
I would like to know more about your method for mapping spoke tension, particularly in the context of unicycling please.
Thanks,
//\
When I first built the strong Coker wheel, apparently no one had attempted to put a true high tension on it. At least, no one could or would tell me what an appropriate tension for either a stock or custom Coker wheel should be.
So I bought a tensiometer and started working with my stock Coker wheel and also those of the lovable Pashley Princess, David Stone, and John Stone, trying to get a feel for what the proper tension should be. In order to do this, I would measure the tension on every spoke of the wheel and write it down, several times through the course of the build and tensioning. I found that the stock wheel could not be tensioned anywhere near a normal tension before spontaneous taco.
I then transferred that technique to the wheel built of high-quality components. When I built the Original Strongest Wheel, I was unsure of what things would do; how the components would react. So I kept mapping the wheel and increasing the tension. By looking at the map, I could see spoke imbalances and correct them, and compare those findings with the wheel building techniques taught in the books and my understanding based on plucking the spokes and the like.
Finally I got to a tension that was over 6x the stock Coker and stopped. Then we did all the tests seen in the pictures. Then I rode the thing for a couple of months and finally got the courage to go higher, eventually getting up another 60% or so. During that time I mapped the tension a couple more times to see what effects riding had on the wheel pattern.
So the mapping technique a) helped me become a better wheel builder, b) helped me go beyond what the books said about wheel building, c) helped me go beyond what people told me about wheel building, and d) helped me determine some reasonable limits to my efforts on the wheel. I believe that using this map will help me understand a wheel’s changes, as well, helping to understand a wheel’s experience.
Unicyclists put much more demand on their wheels than any other cyclist, save perhaps bike trials riders or a few extreme MBers. So understanding the spoke tension in both a physical-feel way, and in a measured-data way, can only help me build better wheels.
Nice. That’s not easy to do; especially over various patterns and wheel sizes. Unless you like to redo wheels (I don’t because it screws up the Spoke Prep), you have to maintain knowledge about how to position the hub with respect to the valve hole from wheel to wheel. Oh no, another challenge… thanks!