What Should I Do With This Older Wheel? Mod And/Or Sell?
 

I have a slight variation on the typical "What is this worth?" question and is more along the line of "What might I do to this wheel to make it more valuable?"

I have a rear 700c wheel that I no longer use and am considering my options for what to do with it. Should I try to sell it or possibly mod it for either a future bike build or maybe to maximize its resale value?

The rear wheel has 36 spokes with a Mavic 700c CXP-10 rim laced to a Shimano RSX FH-A410 hub having a 7-speed freehub. The rim is a narrow one and the wheel currently has a an O.L.D. of 126mm.

When I first got this wheel, it had a 130mm O.L.D. that I shortened to 126mm by removing a 4mm spacer, replacing the axle and redishing the wheel. The measured rim width is 13.7mm and appears to be intended for narrow tires of 25mm or less.

I now also have a Ryde Sputnik rim that I considered replacing the Mavic cxp10 with. This has a very similar profile and ERD although these are not identical. The Mavic cxp-10 has a specification ERD of 598.5mm while the Ryde Sputnik has a specification ERD of 600mm. The big difference is that the Sputnik is wider with a 19.4mm rim width.

My ERD measurement of the Sputnik is actually different but I'm thinking whatever the Mavic's and Ryde's method for indicating specification ERD here are the same so that what matters might be the difference in ERD. This would be 1.5mm with the Sputnik having the larger ERD. That would be the difference of roughly one turn on each of the spoke nipples.

The point of possibly changing the rim would be to repurpose this wheel. It's now intended for a road bike. A wider rim would make the wheel more suitable for a commuter bike. The problem is that a 1.5mm difference in ERD might be still too much of a difference to make this rim swap feasible. I still have the 4mm spacer and the longer axle to restore the O.L.D. to 130mm.

Another possible reason to leave this wheel as is would be that I've read that there are older aluminum-frame bikes having 126mm dropouts that can't be cold-set to 130mm to accept a modern rear wheel. (I've just widened the dropouts on my steel road bike now that I've had practice doing this on several bikes.)

I don't have anything aluminum. I'm wondering if I should just leave this wheel as-is and be rid of it on either Craig's List or Facebook Market Place? The Sputnik could be saved for a future wheel build laced to a more modern hub.

To summarize: I have a rear 700c wheel having a narrow rim, 7-speed freehub and 126mm O.L.D. that I don't intend to use as-is. Should I sell this as-is or should I mod it by either installing a wider rim (if this is feasible) and/or lengthening the O.L.D.?

After that long dissertation I'd think you've spent more effort on the wheel than you'll ever get back.

I'd imagine you might get more for it selling the hub and rim separately, if you get any offers at all. Certainly postage will cost more so include that in your sales price and hope you make a few extra dollars.

In other terms, you have what we ancient riders call "A wall hanger".
Best bet is to leave it alone or tear it apart and separate as Iride01 suggested, and hope for a local sale because any postage is about all they are worth. Doing anything else is just wheel building practice.

Most prefer that both wheels match on a bike, you just need to find the guy that has a matching front. Good Luck!
Tim

Just clean it up and sell it as-is. You won't get back nearly as much in increased sales price as you will spend in time and effort modifying it. Be sure to specify "local sales only" in your CL listing.

maybe normalize O.L.D. od this whee
and later simply hang it on ebuy

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I did overthink this a little. I actually cringed at the thought of coming back to this thread and getting flamed.

Reading this thread: https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/591501-10-speeds-126mm-hub-success.html is what got my thinking a little convoluted. Your responses created a good sanity check.

I'll be putting the wheel for sale up on Craig's List with an eye on swapping the rims when next I have downtime if I don't get any reasonable response or if I might find another old bike needing a rear wheel.

I did goof up on the numbers in my original post going by memory instead of double-checking. Sleep deprivation never helps.

The Ryde Sputnik does have a published ERD of 600mm. According to the spocalc Excel spreadsheet that's floating around, the Mavic CXP-10 has two ERDs indicated, one of 600mm and another of 601mm.

Might an ERD difference of 1mm still be a problem for a rim swap?

I'm gonna go with no.

I’ll summarize this…

You have a 126mm OLD RSX/Mavic rear wheel and you want to replace the Mavic rim with a Ryde rim leaving you with the same 126mm OLD RSX/Ryde wheel. Then you are planning to add “a” 4mm spacer (between the DS cone and the locknut?) to get to 130mm.

First off, if you are really saying (2) 2mm spacers with one on the DS and one on the NDS, that will work. I prefer 0mm DS/4mm NDS, or even 1mm DS/3mm NDS, for a stronger wheel.

Is you RSX A410 hub and freehub body in excellent condition?

You should make sure the races and cones are in really good shape to make it worth your while. Remove the freehub body, while still laced, flush it out, re-lube, and re-install.

Your spoke length is probably fine. I’ve swapped out a 7 speed freehub body to 8-10, and vice versa and re-dished the wheel without any problems, so 1mm is probably not that big a deal.

Finally, do you really want to run 7 speed with 130mm dropouts? I’m not suggesting that you maximize your speeds, but going to a 130mm 8-10 wheel will give you options down the road.

John

That's just the kind of wheel I'd run on a few bikes (I bought its twin from Miamijim to put on my wife's mixte). If I didn't already have more 700C/freehub/126mm wheels than I need, I'd be making an offer.

Despite the narrowness of the rim, it should be a nice and strong wheel for commuting. Don't be afraid to put wider tires than 25mm on it -- people used to put 32mm and bigger on vintage rims like that BITD. :thumb:

Most of my original post was just my thinking out loud and pondering my options.

One of these may be to replace the 7-speed freehub with an 8-10, restore the 130mm OLD and change the rim. The 4mm spacer was on the non-drive side.

Looking at some of the threads here on freehub substitutions, it appears that you're the go-to guy for getting advice on such things.

I should be able to take off the freehub body after pulling out the axle. What should I look for in a replacement freehub body?

BTW, the replacement rear wheel that I now have comes with a Shimano FH-RS300 hub. This has a 6mm NDS spacer for a 130mm OLD. In the thread I referenced in my previous respnse, someone implied that maybe 128mm might be the tightest OLD that one can hope for with an 8-10 freehub body although he never explained why. Excessive dishing? Replacing the 6mm spacer with a 4mm would accomplish this.

I misunderstood that the 4mm was on the DS. No issues with the NDS.

Just quick and dirty info on dropout width.

80’s 7 speed was 126mm.

Late 80’s/early 90’s some mfgs set dropout at 128mm do the frame could accept with a 126mm or a 130mm OLD. This couple of mms leeway seems to hold true today as some frame mfgs make dropouts 132.5mm to accommodate either 130mm or 135mm OLD.

Getting to 128mm with an 8-10 speed freehub body to fit into 126mm dropouts is pretty easy by removing the 1mm washers or using narrower locknuts. As long as there is chain clearance on the DS, it should be fine.

About 10 years ago BF member miamijim did a thread on getting to 126mm with a 10 speed cassette and it is pretty involved

I have found that just cramming a 130mm OLD into 126mm dropouts can sometimes cause the derailleur hanger to flare at an angle.

If you have 130mm dropouts none of this matters.

But as already noted above, going with another 8-10 speed rear wheel would be a better solution long term.

John