After 5 months of waiting for my hub to return since sending it in the for the recall, I got it in the mail yesterday and immediately dropped it off at the bike shop to be built. I picked it up today and followed Florian’s instructions of injecting 1 siringe of his oil into the slot screw and then tightened everything up and started to ride (at night, in the cold rain).
So…was it worth the 5 month wait? Absolutely.
This thing is amazing. I rode Chuck’s at RTL but it has been so long since Nova Scotia and I forgot how truely amazing it is to ride a geared 36. My setup is not ideal yet since I am running a heavy coker tube, but it still doesn’t feel that heavy.
First thoughts: Geared 36ers are easier to ride than geared 29ers. I don’t know if it has to do with the wheel momentum or the fact that I am using 150mm cranks instead of the 125s I was using on the geared 29, but riding in high gear is very easy.
I did not put the buttons on yet because I know that it takes a while for the cranks to settle and I have been tightening them every few minutes. It will take a few more rounds of riding/tightening before they are on good. Hopefully tomorrow or thursday I can put the buttons on and try shifting.
My set up is:
KH 36" frame
Nightrider rim (white)
150/125 dual drilled Moments
CF KH seat base with Fusion Freeride foam and GB4 handles
Some cut bar ends on a KH rail adapter to mount my brake
Snafu pedals (only because my MG1s were making a lot of noise…I will replace the Snafus with MG1s when I get new ones in the mail)
Nightrider Tire with Coker tube (hopefully trying out a 29er tube at some point)
Pics to come soon and a better review to come as well. Stay tuned.
Hell yeah, James!! Bout time you got that hub back!
Now you just need to ride it out to California…
As for the cranks, yeah, just keep yanking them down. Eventually they’ll stay that way. Even still, though, I never ever ride without my little Schlumpf button holder-inner-the-righter-placer plate that you need in order to hold the buttons still to get the set screws inside loose and tight. Last time mine went loose on me was early July… before that, early June, before that, late April, and before that, they were pretty much coming loose every ride or two all the way back until I first built it up.
So did you mount it in high gear right away? Isn’t that really difficult? Are the GB4 handles being made again or did you get them used or when they were still in production? I’m looking for something to replace my broken T7 with.
Yeah, I have just been mounting it in high gear. It isn’t all that difficult, it depends on your abilities. Some find it really difficult, some find it easy, it is all in the mounting technique. I always have always used a static mount and it works well with the geared 36 (for me)…although I guess a rolling one would be better, but I have never used rolling mounts.
GB4s are unfortunately not being made anymore. I have had my GB4 for quite a long time now. There was a thread that someone made about their custom aluminum GB4-like handle they made that looked very awesome. You could make something similar to the GB4 by following that and by having someone weld the parts.
James, you’re so right. Geared on a 36" is the way to go. I love them. We are a little behind Corbin and Louise in that our Munis are still single-speed (have to fix that soon), but we are loving the dual 36ers. I set another speed record yesterday riding to work.
Unfortunately, the Africa trip will probably consume all my finances and vacation time. I’d love to go, but I don’t think I’ll be able to afford it or get the time off. If I can swing it (some how), I will make it happen. I’ve always wanted to visit NZ.
I took it for a spin again for about an hour tonight after work. I put the shifting buttons on and played around with shifting. Shifting into low gear feels smooth and it doesn’t feel silly riding in low gear like it did with the geared 29. I actually feel like I have two usable gears! Shifting into high gear feels easier on the geared 36 than on the geared 29 (although shifting into high gear is pretty easy with both), and shifting into low gear feels slightly harder, but I am sure I will get better with practice.
I have only been able to ride this beast at night due to work, but even at night in the rain I am going insanely fast on it without feeling like I am out of control. I can’t wait till this weekend when I will take it on a nice bike trail.
Below are some pics, you can see my funky way of putting bar ends on a cut rail adapter to fit my brake (brake hasn’t been installed yet). I need to cut the vertical bar end down quite a lot because that extra bit is not needed, but this was a temp solution for me until I weld a brake mount on my GB4. I just need to find someone who can weld.
A question for the KH/Schlumpf 36er owners. How stiff and strong is the wheel? The flange width of the KH/Schlumpf hub is less than what I’m used to with an extra-wide standard hub. It took some work to end up with a 36" wheel that I found to be stiff enough and strong enough for me and the extra width of an extra-wide hub was critical. Is the geared KH 36" wheel noticeably less stiff?
I’m a big fan of the extra wide hub too. While I can’t say if the Schlumpf hub and KH 36 frame combo is narrower (Anyone know how much narrower the schlumpf is than the wide UDC hub??) and therefore weaker, but with my single speed wide ISIS hub and KH 36 frame . . . . . I’m feeling like the reduction in hub width does result in a weaker wheel. This is a limit for off-road riding, but the narrower hub seems fine for road riding with a couple of caveats:
You gotta fiddle with the maggie brakes to get the shoes backed off enought to not rub, yest still work as a brake. They barely do their job.
You really have to dial in the higher spoke tension a lot more precisely. You could go for years with a ex-wide hub with a lower tension wheel build and never have to touch the spokes and ride over all sorts fo crazy stuff, but the narrower hub build seems to need more care and feeding/frequent truing.
I found that the bearings that came on the Nimbus ISIS hub were loose/ defective and added to the lateral movement at the outside of the wheel. I replaced the bearings and all is well with this
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Unfortunately, that spare hub is the recalled 1st Gen hub.
Congrats on the new Schlumpf James! Hopefully that will solve some of your knee probs? A also found shifting is definitely easier than the 29" Schlumpf also!
I’m yearning for my Unguni though…but unfortunately I only have a Schlumpf with me in Aussie.
John and Brycer1968, I don’t notice any flex whatsoever with the 36" KH Schlumpf. And I’ve revved it up well over 30km/hr on dirt. The frame is pretty stiff, so that helps…we wrestled with one for over an hour with minimal frame flex when I wrecked my first frame.
