Swapping disc brake wheelsets
 

Hey everyone -

So I finally got my Santa Cruz Stigmata and I'm toying with the idea of selling my road bike and using the Stigmata for both road and gravel. I'm not 100% sure if the mullet gearing on it will work for the road, but I wanna try it out for a bit to see before I decide.

The bike came with 6-bolt SRAM rotors, but the cheap road wheelset I bought to test it with road tires is set up for centerlock rotors. What would be the best way to approach this with minimal adjustment when swapping wheelsets?

Should I:

1. Get Shimano centerlock rotors for the road wheels and then readjust the brakes every time?
2. Get a centerlock to 6-bolt adapter and run the same SRAM rotors on the road wheelset?
3. Get the centerlock rotors and adjust the calipers to those and then use shims to adjust the 6-bolt rotors on my gravel wheelset?
4. Something else all togther?

Thanks!!

You may not need to shim at all. I would not change 6-bolt to centerlock. Both wheelsets may center in your caliper the same - if they don't - - - the one that rubs to the towards the inside of the frame gets shimmed away from the wheel until it is centered. Don't dick around with moving the calipers everytime you swap wheels.

Thanks for the response - so basically you're saying to go ahead and get the centerlock rotors for my new wheels and then see where I'm at after that? Don't bother with an adapter?

That's what I would do. Shims for 6-bolt are different than shims for centerlock so just wait to see which one you might need.

Don't bother with the 6 bolt/CL adapter. It probably won't make any difference. Running a 6 bolt adapter on a centerlock hub shouldn't really move the position of the rotor in or out, it just provides a different attachment point so you can use a 6 bolt rotors instead of centerlock.

Even if you have the same system on both wheelsets, you may end up needing to shim rotors on one of them to get things aligned better. There's some variation in hub manufacturing. The shims are usually 0.25mm thick so you can make up very small variations by adding one or more shims as needed to shift the rotor position.

And, just to clarify - you can shim both a centerlock rotor and a 6 bolt rotor. The shims are different for each, but they do the same thing. The shim goes between the rotor and the hub, so you can only shim the rotor in one direction (outboard). This is why you should wait until you get the new wheels, then align your calipers with the set that has the rotor more outboard without shims installed - and install shims on the other until it's centered.

Agree with the above comments. Also, it would probably be helpful to use the same brand/model of rotors, even if one is 6-bolt and one is center lock. I did that on my 2 wheelsets on my mechanic's recommendation.

Although, if you have cup&cone hubs, you can add a shim underneath the locknut to shift the rotor inboard. A fraction of a mm will not upset either fork or frame.

Keep the road bike!!!

If something happens to the Stigmata you may be screwed. Swapping may work, but from experience it wasn’t perfect and required tinkering with indexing to the point where it became a hassle.

Good luck either way and enjoy the bike!

I run two sets of wheels on my gravel bike with two different size cassettes (same brand and model though). works perfectly. plug and play

Worked for me with one of three bikes. I still think if doing so with my current bike but I’ve resisted (for now)

I use a 6 bolt wheel as well as a CenterLok wheel on my Topstone with 105 disc brakes. I did not need to shim the rotors.

I use two of the same center lock wheelsets and I even have alignment issues with exactly the same wheels and disc rotors. I'm running GRX hydraulics and used the business card method of aligning the calipers with the rotor with a tendency to rub (sliding the card in-between the rotor and brake pad). I then tightened up the calipers and that seemed to align the brakes properly for both set of wheels.

Keep both bikes. Different tires and gear ratios give you flexibility. Ride A, gravel bike is best. Ride B, road bike. Variety adds enjoyment. Also, if you get a flat or a mechanical problem, you can still ride the other bike until you get the problem fixed.

More bikes is always the correct answer.

That said, wheelset swapping shouldn't be seen as a barrier here. Even if rotors need to be shimmed, it's a one-time thing and after that all you have to do is take of and put on wheels, and go ride. I've never needed to adjust anything with my drivetrains, even when switching between brands/sizes of cassettes.

Solved centerlock spacers!
 

HI, after checking this forum, I finally found spacers for the centerlock's on ebay. just copy the object nr to ebay: 256141889281
All my wheels are now perfectely aligned, FINALLY! :)

eBay-objectnrr:256141889281
'Centerlock Shims, Centerlock Spacer, centerlock Washer. Disc brake adapter'

I don't skim; with 3 wheelsets, the difference is negligible and it may rub a little but not enough to shim so, I just undo the torx T25, clamp the brake a little and retighten. 10minutes max..