Zap Hassellhoff

Hey all, I'm too lazy to spell check.

I'm converting an old Nishiki Colorado Mixte Frame into a 3 speed. The goal is to create a city/market bike for my wife with fenders, racks, baskets, whatever else. The rear spacing is currently 126mm, I'll cold set it to 130.

Anyway, I'm having trouble finding a pre-built 26" wheel, nexus 3 speed with 130mm spacing.

Anyone know a source, or am I stuck having a wheel built?

On a side note, Cruiser wheels are everywhere. Is swapping the axle for a longer one pretty straight forward? I have alot of expeirence with normal axles, but this is my first time really dealing internal hubs.

meb

The Nexus 7/8 speeds are about 130 mm spacing, so one of their axles would be long enough for 130mm, but it seems an awful lot of work to expand out there. Are you swapping it out with an 8 speed wheelset occasionally and need the extra droppout width?

Why not go with an 8 speed Nexus hub if you want to put the hub in that wide a dropout? You'd have extra gears and have a hub already intended for a wide dropout!

Zap Hassellhoff

I though about going with a 7 speed for a minute but I realy like the ease of the 3 speed and the cost of the 7 speed starts to make this projest get a little out hand.

meb

I gotta believe having a wheel specially built and hub modified that expands the dropout spacing of a Nexus 3 from 120mm to 130mm is going be comparable in price to a Nexus-7 that is already 130mm or a Nexus 8 that is 132mm. Perhaps Rube Goldberg will disagree with me.

Maybe you could go with a standard 120 mm Nexus 3 and insert the axle inside some flanges and in turn bolt the flanges to the inboard portions of the 130 mm dropouts. I've seen some old bike suspension systems that used that and similar approaches.