OK so in a bout of late-night beer-induced ebay madness I bid on a set of old-school shamals (road, 16H) and now I’ve won them. Now I have the challenge of converting the the freehub rear for track use.
Known alternatives seem to be:
replace rear hub with 32h track hub laced to every second hole (not preferred)
replace rear hub with a custom-drilled and slotted Phil (pricey now that the dollar is in the shitter)
Anyone know of another way? Are there any other (ie less pricey than Phil)16H track hub options out there? Or is there a not-crap way of converting the freehub?
Years ago there used to be a guy on UK Ebay that sold conversion kits to turn Campy freehubs into fixed gears. You see the converted wheels pop up every now and then. Can’t remember what it was called though.
Thanks all for your input, will try to hunt down lower-cost 16h hubs as a first call (nice as they are a custom-drilled phil would cost me more than the whole wheelset)
I doesn’t help me but I did find this along the way:
Looking at these wheels a couple of weeks ago and asked the bloke how it changed from a track to a road wheel, here’s his response.
“they are are a road hub, but with these hubs the free wheel cassette bit pulls off when you take the cones and other bits out/off where you attach the track part, it fits straight into the bit where the free wheel bit sits, than you put the track axle through puts cones and such on and than its ready to ride on the track. to change it back to the road set up you take all the track stuff off pup the free wheel in and the internals, put your cassette on and than its road ready.”
Maybe drop him a line and ask where he got this magical device. Guessing it’s something like the fixer, but might just fit the bill.