Paul Barnard

I am sure some of you are running different wheelsets on the same bike. Tell me about your experience with it. I am doing a build in which I will have a commuting/touring wheelset and a more performance oriented wheelset. Different rims and hubs on each one. I am assuming when I make the switch there will be fractional differences that may necessitate making minor adjustments? Is this the case? I am not anticipating any wear related issues as they will both get used about the same amount. Just fishing for thoughts. Thanks.

on the path

I do this. It can work out in a satisfactory way. You may have to adjust shift cable tension for the RD, via barrel adjuster, and also hi and low limit for said RD. If the positions of the respective brake tracks vary too much it could be a problem. I wouldn't want to adjust brake pad position every time I switched out wheels. You might have to adjust brake cable tension by barrel adjuster, which is quick and easy.

HillRider

You will probably have to tweak the rear derailleur adjustment when you switch wheels. Tolerances between two different freehubs and cassettes may be enough to effect shifting. Also chains and cassettes tend to wear as a set and using the same chain may cause skipping on one or both of the cassettes even assuming the optimal chain length is the same for both. Consider having a chain dedicated and sized to each cassette and switching it when you change wheels. Chains with master links like KMC, Wipperman, etc. make this easy.

Paul Barnard

I am going to be installing, adjusting and running mechanical disc brakes for the first time, so some of this is uncharted territory for me. I am hoping I won't have to piddle with the brakes much. I REALLY hope I don't run into a situation where I will have to spend a lot of time making it work out. In typical fashion for me, I didn't really think about this when ordering the wheels. I had always read that one of the advantages of running disc brakes was that you could run multiple wheelsets. Only now that I am getting ready to start my build did I start mentally mapping everything out in detail.

dsbrantjr

Expect to have to make minor adjustments to accommodate production tolerances, even when replacing like for like.

Kovkov

cyccommute 

It's not nearly as useful as you might think. The differences in the wheels...weight, performance, durability, etc... aren't going really huge so it's usually not worth the money investment. I have winter wheels for one of my bikes but that's just for convenience. In terms of construction, they are just about the same wheels as the summer wheels. In all honesty, I could get by with one set of wheels for the bike and just change tires or, more likely, pick a different bike off the wall.

That's how I solved the problem...more bikes! In the winter for snow and ice, I have my winter bike with studs and for the days when it's warmer, I have my winter bike without studs. If I want to tour, I pull my touring bike off the wall or I pull my winter bike with the summer wheels on it off the wall for off-road touring. If I want to go fast, I pull out the fast road bike. It's more expensive to have multiple bikes, for sure but bikes are reasonable cheap compared to other hobbies I could have chosen.

Paul Barnard

I am trying to downsize my fleet. The touring type rims I bought weren't expensive. I bought them on closeout. I guess in a worst case scenario were I have to go to great lengths to switch back and forth, I'll use the performance oriented rims for day to day use and put on the touring set when I am going to tour or ride gravel.

Reeses

Mr IGH

I have a second wheelset for my road bikes. For my rim braked road bike I have a set of Mavic Aksiums with 32mm tyres and tubes for spring when the roads are covered in debris (that's all the room on the frame). The second set is some Shimano Ultegra with tubeless 28mm tyres. The lighter set saves over 450gms/1 pound and is very noticeable esp when climbing here in CO.


Same thing for my disc brake road bike except as soon as the 32mm tyres wear out I'll upgrade to something 35mm~38mm. The lightweight set runs 28mm tubeless too.


On both bikes the adjustment of the rear derailleur needs a little fine tuning with the SIS cable adjuster. No changing of the limit screws (added a 1mm washer to the rim brake Aksiums freehub to make it <1mm difference).


On both bikes I end up re-adjusting the brakes and it takes a few minutes.


Tandem has two wheelsets too, 38mm tyres and 32mm tyres depending on the roads/paths. Rear hubs are the same and the derailliur needs no adjustment. Brakes need adjustment due to different rim widths.


I've been running extra wheelsets on road bikes since I had my first nice bike with sew-ups back in the late '70. It's expands the use of a single bike and keeps the fleet size down. I'm dumping my rim brake road bike and I'll be down to 3 bikes (MTB, Disc road, rim braked commuter) and a tandem.


Next spring I'll upgrade to an MTB that runs 27.5/3" and 29/2.4" on the same frame.

Paul Barnard

So far there have been no direct swaps without adjustment. It looks like it will be a matter of what needs to be adjusted and how much.

woodcraft

I swap wheels quite a bit. Tomorrow's ride is extra long w/ crappy pavement & wind, so put on the medium depth wheels w/ bigger, softer tires.

It's more about the tires than the wheels e.g. knobby or slick on the CX bike,

but also several road wheelsets w/ different depths, & tires. I run tubulars, so it's easier to swap wheels than tires.

Anyway, the key thing is to have the cassettes all be the same distance from the end of the freehub, & thus from the dropout & RD for consistent shifting.

Different rim widths could need (rim) brake adjustment, but I haven't had this.

Don't swap any disc wheels so can't comment there.

I have like 8 wheelsets that can go on 2 bikes without adjustment except brake pads for carbon/aluminum.

RockiesDad

I have two wheel sets for my one bike. One has 17mm inner width for 25c road tires and the other has 20mm inner width for 35c gravel tires. The trick I think is to use the correct spacers/shims for both the cassette and the disc rotors. If you can get them pretty close then it just a turn or two on the cable adjustments for the rear derailler and brake calipers. Both my set fit pretty good and no adjustments are needed when I swap them out. Takes some trial and error in the beginning but is worth it in the end once you get it set up right.

cpach

You can mess with stuff if your really want to be able to interchange wheels quickly. If the cassettes don't index the same on both wheels, you can identify which cassette is more inboard relative to the centerline of the frame and then shim the cassette--shims come as small as 1mm, and you can even sand them down a bit if you want to be really retentive about it. Same deal with the rotors--you can shim whichever rotor is more inboard to the centerline of the bike. Oftentimes these are close enough to be runnable, possibly with a slightly compromised setup.

caloso

DeadGrandpa

Kapusta

Mr IGH

I had two sets of wheels with the same front/rear hubs with disc brakes. They swapped without any changes to the derailleur or brake caliper. I sold off one set of wheels with another bike and now the two sets I use have different hubs (Shimano vs DT). I could start messing with shims to make them the same but it's not worth it to me. I don't swap wheels that often and it doesn't take much effort to make the required adjustments.

Retro Grouch 

I used to do that.

I once had a set of "mud tires" mounted up on a spare wheel set for my mountain bike. I also built a separate wheel set for a friend so she could have slicks on one and knobbies on the other. I was able to get both wheel sets to work with no other adjustments needed.
Identical hubs help. I spent some time making sure the cassette spacing was identical, but that was in the age of 7/8 speeds so cassette spacing wasn't quite as picky is it is today. I found identical rims to be beneficial too but that was in the age of rim brakes.

If you find yourself having to fiddle with derailleur or brake adjustments every time that you switch, simply swapping tires doesn't look so bad,

fietsbob

Racing Cyclocross, spare wheels , with the off road tread , get carried by competitors,

who ride their race bike to the course ..

differing widths of rims of course need brake adjustment,, disc may not..



...

Paul Barnard

This will be my first time using disc rotors. Are there spacers you can put between the rotor and the hub?

RockiesDad

These are for six hole rotor/hubs. Actually they are called shims...

https://www.syntace.com/index.cfm?pid=3&pk=757

If you got center lock hubs there might be a washer or something to use. Not sure what that is though...

Paul Barnard

Good stuff! Thanks. I have 6 bolt.

Slightspeed

I have a set of Token carbon wheels for my Culprit, and a set of Reynolds carbon wheels, both with disc rotors for my TRP Spyre mechanical disc setup. I'm also running 10 speed Di2. I have no problem swapping wheels, they just swap back and forth, no brake or shifting issues. I also have identical gear cassettes on both sets.

Paul Barnard

Just wanted to update you. The wheels switch over almost perfectly. The rear derailleur needs a light tweaking to work perfectly. Nothing needs to be done to the brakes.