Bought a mid 90’s Cannondale M300 and I need a new wheelset.. mainly a rear wheel, but I was able to find a set on FB Marketplace that is pretty cheap.
Thing is, the front wheel has a disc brake caliper installed and I don’t want to use it. Can I just take it off and it’ll work just fine?
What else do I need to take into consideration before swapping wheelsets?
by bangbrigade
13 Comments
That’s fine as long as the width of the Axel matches the inner width of the dropouts. And the wheel sits center in the frame
Rim brake wheels have grooves carved into them for additional braking surface. Riding a wheel like this without a brake track will not have a lot of power.
It looks like you’ll be fine, according to Trek the rim is compatible with rim brakes.
It’s mentioned under the spec section here:
https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/equipment/cycling-components/bike-wheels/mountain-bike-wheels-wheelsets/bontrager-at-550-26-mtb-wheel/p/12927/
This is a Bontrager AT550, which does come in both rim-brake and disc-brake versions, but the one shown here is the disc version. It should not be used with rim brakes.
… having said that… I’m sure the rim wouldn’t be in any danger. I’m sure it’s the same extruded section for both the disc and non-disc versions of the wheel, but the rim-brake version does have a raw metal brake track, not this painted sidewall. So your braking performance would be worse than a proper rim-brake wheel.
You could probably make it work by removing the front rotor. That is a bolt on back wheel and so will be a freewheel hub which is less than ideal. I would guess that that wheelset is from a cheap bike with a disc front and v rear. I would keep looking. A donor bike might be an option if you cant find a wheel set. Do you have any co-op or used shops in your area?
You mean that the the chain just spins and doesn’t engage the wheel? Where are you located in the world?
You could try laying the wheel flat and spraying some penetrating oil into the gap between the axle nut and free hub body, just to see if you can free up the pawls. Likely they are stuck because of dried up grease. Triflow works well to free up shifter pawls and I would bet that it would work if you let it soak in. If you have fully sealed hubs this won’t work. This would only be temporary but would prove that the pawls are intact.
The best way would be to get a chain whip (or make one) and a cassete removal tool and disassemble everything, clean and repack the hub. This would be the correct way, and the best fix if the wheel itself is still good.
The downvotes are comical on bikewrench. I’m just asking questions here. I’ve never replaced or built wheelsets so just wanted some insight.
Ok craigslist has fewer bikes than the number of bikes added to Seattle craigslist in an hour. Must be a bike desert there.
https://oklahomacity.craigslist.org/bop/d/yukon-26-rims-wheels-rims-tires-and/7900764490.html#
Those could work. I would buy the tools and try to fix yours if they are otherwise good, but these could be an option.
Everything is on FB Marketplace it seems. Appreciate you finding these! Those look like they’d work great. Will keep them in mind if I can’t find anything else. Wouldn’t mind putting in a little elbow grease to save some cash.
This is a great choice! Typical 90s MTBs often came with hard anodized rims… the anodizing will get scrubbed off by your rim brake pads, but that’s okay!
Yep: totally fine to simply remove that disk rotor. You won’t need it and the hub / rim, etc.. will work just fine without it.
If the rim itself is for rim brakes, tnen a disc brake hub doesn’t present any problems.
The important question is ‘has the rim been designed to be used with rim brakes?’
If it has then the wheels will be completely fine to use.
If the rims are disc only ones, then it would be dangerous to use them with rim brakes – your brake performance will be very poor on an inappropriately finished surface, and you risk the wheel failing under braking as it won’t be designed to support brake pads clamping on to the rim.
There was a period during the transition from rim to disc brakes where we did end up with a lot of hybrid rim/disc wheels (presumably to streamline manufacturing) so you could end up with a braking surface around the rim of your disc brake equipped bikes wheels, or a hub ready to fit a disc rotor on a rim brake bike.