Considering options for my next wheel. I’m very seriously considering a Nimbus disc hub, but am just a bit nervous about having a dished wheel on a unicycle, particularly a muni. So the question:
Has anyone had problems with dished wheels built on the Nimbus internal disc hubs?
Shouldnt be a problem
First off, they usually wouldnt put something into production if it werent tested to be strong enough… recall’s are very expensive. I have a redline Urbis fixie that is made for doing street tricks, and big drops, onto cement, and it has 700c (29") deep V aluminum rims with a dished lacing pattern and a hub mounted rotor. Absolutely zero problems. Plenty strong enough. These bikes are built for doing lots of 180’s and such, and that puts a LOT of sideload stress on a bike wheel. It can take it.
Not riding the nimbus hub but I am riding a mad4one hub that has an internal disc brake. So far I have yet to experience any issues with strength of the wheel. The spokes have came loose from time to time but this is common on most any wheelset.
Ive been trying my best to put this setup through some hard testing and so far I am highly impressed with it 
I’ve built a 24" muni wheel with Nimbus Oracle hub and Bengal Helix disc brake and had no problems. I’ve also owned a Nimbus Impulse 36" with disc brake for more than a year without problems. Disc brakes are awesome - super strong and very smooth!
Treating your old KH29 to an upgrade as per Nurse Ben’s advice are we
I have been riding mine from when they were first released and it was my first wheel build.
I have had no problems at all the disc side spokes do have a fair bit of tension compared to the non disc side to keep it dished correctly but the build was straightforward and as I stressed relieved it as I built it I have never had any issues with it going out of true and that is with 2mm / 1.5mm / 2mm DT Revolution DB spokes.
I will rebuilding it into a KH29 frame next week (with the awesome Hans Dampf) which is a shame as it has been such a top wheel but I am hankering for that bigger wheel buzz 
I will post up a build thread when I start which might be of interest.
When you think about it whilst we may have more torsional forces on our wheel (which the tyre is probably taking the brunt of) bikes have massively dished rear wheels with their 9-10 speed free-hubs (far more than the Oracle hub) and they don’t have any problems and if you think how many of those have our are being used over decades I think it safe to say a dished wheel built well (or not that well with my amateur job :p) will be absolutely fine. Bikes also are a lot faster so hit things far harder and the big DH/freeride boys are doing massive drops and jumps on them.
I think the only rare issue is creaking (which i have not had) which is an issue with all multi piece/material KH hubs as the flanges sometimes move on the axle.
On top of all that I think they look so much better than the crank mounted disc brakes IMHO
I am sure Nurse Ben will put his thoughts in to the mix soon being more of a kit whore than me and owning about 47 wheels with them in 
As for spoke length Roger at UDC uses a 287mm for both sides with long 16mm nips (so 288mm with 14mm nipples) on a KH freeride rim 606.5 erd, with your XC rim with a 608mm erd you would need an extra 1mm on those lengths, obviously check for yourself my recent spoke exploits (due to nipple length variations) makes me not trust anything anymore
Hope my ramblings helped
Do you have any evidence of this? I haven’t seen any evidence of unicycle.com testing beyond “give one of these to a couple of great riders and see if they break it,” which hardly counts as a testing program.
That said, a well-built dished wheel will do better than a poorly-built undished wheel, which is most of what unicyclists ride.
Not an issue, all bike wheels are dished, doesn’t seem to cause a problem for bikers 
I have had five different dished wheels (26, 26, 29, 32, 36), sold one, four remaining, I ride them all, 200#, not always graceful, I even ride technical muni on a dished 36er and it has yet to need any truing.
Dished wheels with a disc hub are the future for unicycles, it was just a matter of time until they followed bikes. Disc cranks are an option, but you know my opinion on that one
This is true! For over 100 years bicyclists have been using dished rear wheels.
and another pro for disc hubs is they align the same regardless of the wheel used, so you can swap wheels onto the same frame as long as the rotors are similarly sized.
On my 36er I swap out wheels between 32" and 36" in minutes and no brake adjustment is needed. I’ll be doing the same with my Oregon once I get my new 29er wheel built (waiting on the release of the 29 x 3 Knard).
Talking rotors, in terms of sizing, having run 160, 180, and 200mm rotors, my fav and the one that works the best is 200mm. Not that the smaller rotors don’t work, but the 200mm rotors on my 32" and 36" work flawlessly and broke in smoothly, my 180’s not as well, the 160’s were a mixed bag. A bigger rotor is more powerful and cools better, shoudln’t be a fit problem on most frames.
For brake choices, consider the Magura MT series, they use mineral oil, easy line shortening and bleeding, and the pads can be removed for cleaning/maintenance from the outside, so the wheel doesn’t need to be removed
Yes, I do…
Yes, I do. The “dished”, or offset laced wheel, has been in constant use and production ever since they started adding drum brakes to Motorcycles, dating back to the teens, or rather, the last 100 years.
I myself have been lacing wheels for both motorcycle and bicycle since the mid 70’s, where, as it has already been pointed out, it is also in use on wheels with multiple gear clusters. Had Unicycle.com invented this process, they might have tested further, but, as we all know, they are not a manufacturer, but a retail outlet that has their product manufactured elsewhere. A Product that has been in constant and successfull use for over the last 100 years. Wasting money on R&D for something that already works would be as foolish as, say, you trying to challenge my original statement to the original poster. I responded in order to offer helpfull advise to set his mind at ease.
Your post had no further purpose than to try and nit-pick an argument, and offered no information of any relevance .
If you need further written proof (beyond the obvious) that it works just fine, you may spend (waste) your own time looking it up.
I was “nit-picking” your assertion that “they wouldn’t put something into production if it weren’t tested to be strong enough.” unicycle.com does not have a real testing program, so the fact that something is in production is not any kind of proof that it will work. And the history of unicycle development is littered with things that didn’t work.
Dished wheels should work fine, as I said. But they will fail more often than undished wheels, just as they do on bikes, and for the same reasons. They also are harder to build properly.
There is very little testing of 36" wheels for bikes, and anyone in that industry will tell you that 36" wheels are more likely to fail than 700c wheels. A large percentage of the unicycle disc brake installed base will be on 36" wheels.
Unicycles also concentrate all your weight on one wheel, are more likely to get landed on by their rider when falling off, and don’t have suspension to help absorb the impact of large drops.
All that being said, it will probably work fine in most cases. But we do see wheel failures even with undished wheels, and we will see more with dished wheels; that’s simple physics.
Thanks all. Tholub did a good job summarizing the reasons for my hesitation. And maybe I’m too cynical, but just because a company is selling something does not mean it’s been fully tested. Ever hear of product recalls? And with specific regard to unicycles, history with bikes does not mirror the strain of putting all the weight and force on a single wheel. Also, although I think UDC/Nimbus are doing a great job, there simply is not enough of a market base to justify complete testing of products before they are released. We’re in a niche sport, so we the purchasers necessarily become part of the testing program with new innovations.
All that said, it sounds like I should be fine with a dished wheel. I’ve got my KH29 setup with a disc on the cranks; I’m considering my options for a new 36er. I definitely plan to use the 36er off road, but probably won’t beat it up as much as Ben.
@ Unishark:
I’ll have all my unis with me in Utah/NM, so you can try them, flex them, etc…so no need to buy before them unless you “thneed” them
There is a difference like Tholub said, but I don’t think it’s big enough to matter unless you are doing really crazy drops, in which case any wheel could be affected.
Honestly, I never had a probelm with a symetrically built wheel and I’m not a rim bender on bikes neither, so maybe time will tell.
The Nimbus disc hubs are not made any differenly than the Nimbus non disc hubs if that makes a difference.
I was concerned in the beginning, esp when I built up the Oracle 29" and the spoke angle just seemed so steep on the rotor side, but it’s been fine, no more of a problem than my wider Oregon disc hubs.
Judging by the look on his face, he doesn’t even seem to mind that he trashed it. 
Perhaps he borrowed it for the ride?
hahaha love destroyed wheels! This one has 100% complete spoke failure! Ive yet to see a wheel with all the spokes snapped on it 
what i think is funny is the large marge is still round.
Yeah, I think it’s probably rebuildable. I can’t find the images right now, but someone (Eyal?) got a sequence of Josh doing a big drop (over 4 feet) where you can see the hub go all the way to the ground. Who said we can’t have suspension on unicycles?
I’m not sure big wheels are the rage , but some people like them.
The wheel size debate is old, same issues as bikers, what works for one person doesn’t always work for another, etc…
You really can’t know until you try and fail, even then it might be that you try again later and it sticks or you fail again.
If you want to test your theory, then first get comfortable on both 24/26 and 29, then after six months to a year, go back and try the other wheel. The same can be done with crank lengths.
I have lots of gear and apparently too much time, so I play around with my set ups quite often. I went back and forth on crank sizes, finally settled on 165’s for all of my unis. Same with wheel sizes, I went back and forth, ultimately I let the small wheels go because I wasn’t riding them.
Last year I rode in a twenty mile race with three other 29er riders and a 24er rider, the fastest guys were on the 29er, but I finished side by side with 24er rider, so maybe I was slow and he was fast…but we both finished and had fun doing it.