After many late nights and early mornings, I have finally built the site up to a point that we’re ready to show it off to the public. We’ll continue to add to it as our business and inventory grows, and add articles and technical pages of interest. You can shop on the site and checkout with any major credit card or PayPal. The blog will be on the front page so that you’ll have something new to look at when you check in, and we hope you’ll check in often. RSS is built into the site, so you shouldn’t have any trouble subscribing if you’d like. We’re also on Twitter, if you’re into that sort of thing.

As well as parts, you can build and order custom wheels through the site, but as always if you have any questions about choosing wheel components please call or e-mail me and I’ll be happy to help.

Browse around if you’re so inclined.  And thanks for stopping in.

I’d like to take this time to thank all the customers who went through the inconvenience of placing orders without knowing exactly what we had in inventory during the last year and half–the ones who called and asked “you got _____? got ________?

I would very much appreciate any suggestions about parts you’d like to see us add.   And if any typos slipped past the spellchecker and me (I’m sure they did) please excuse them, report them if they bother you or you just like reporting those types of things.  I’ll work to root them out.

If you’re coming across our business for the first time we appreciate the visit and hope you’ll find something you like. Don’t hesitate to call with any questions that aren’t answered by the website.  We hope we’ll have a chance to do business with you.

Excerpts from the city’s announcement–

The Cross-City Trail will be a 10-mile, off-road, multi-use trail which will provide bicycle and pedestrian access to numerous recreational, cultural, and educational destinations in Wilmington.

The Cross-City Trail is a core trail in a developing city-wide trails and greenways system which will make alternative transportation in Wilmington a safer, more convenient option for every citizen.

Project staff, planners, and engineers will be available to discuss the project,  answer questions and receive feedback on the progress thus far.

There was a similar open house for the Market Street Corridor project and the cyclists who attended said their presence was very fruitful.  The people in charge are sympathetic to our concerns, and these open houses are a good opportunity to make sure the time and money invested in these projects results in a more walkable and bikeable city. Please consider making it if you can.

Open House @ 6:00pm
Presentation @ 7:00pm

Cameron Art Museum
3201 South 17th Street
Wilmington, NC 28412

If you’re not aware of the Cross City Trail Project, you might want to look at this map–2009-04-23_Cross-CityTrailMap[REVISED]

One annoying myth in wide circulation in the fixed wheel world is that you need a fix/free or “flip-flop” hub if you want to put a fixed cog on one side of the hub and singlespeed freewheel on the other.

“Flip-flop” is a generic term to denote any hub that can have drivetrain components attached to both sides but doesn’t describe what kind of component you can attach to either side of the hub. Before the fixie craze was mainly used to refer to BMX hubs.  Most competition track hubs have traditionally been “single fixed”. The term “flip-flop” has become very widely misused to refer exclusively to a fix/free track hub.

The threading for a track cog and a freewheel is exactly the same thread pitch–1.370″ X 24 tpi (threads per inch). Which means you can attach a freewheel to any hub threaded for a track cog.

So if you have a fixed/free hub, here are your options.

• Singlespeed freewheel on one side, nothing on the other
• Track cog and lockring on one side, nothing on the other
• Track cog and lockring on one side, singlespeed freewheel on the other

On the other hand, if you have a fixed/fixed threaded hub, here are your options.

• Singlespeed freewheel on one side, nothing on the other
• Track cog and lockring on one side, nothing on the other
• Track cog and lockring on one side, singlespeed freewheel on the other
• Track cog and lockrings on both sides
• Singlespeed freewheels on both sides

A fixed/fixed hub is much more versatile.

But won’t you have less thread engagement on a singlepseed freewheel mounted to the side of a hub threaded for a track cog?

This is a good question.  The answer is yes, but it doesn’t matter.  The freewheel will have enough engagement to function perfectly.  I’ve never seen a hub or freewheel ruined by this use.

Is there any reason to prefer a fix/free hub?

If you understand the threading and options correctly, I can only think of one fairly ridiculous situation to which other solutions would be preferable that buying a less versatile hub.  The only benefit to the “free” side is that the extra threads allow the insertion of spacers behind the freewheel to correct a too-wide front chainline.  A single chainring road bike (whether a singlespeed, fixed wheel, coaster, or most internal gear hub) should have a chainline of 40.5-42mm.  Let’s say your front chainline was wider than that and you wanted to put 5mm of spacers behind a freewheel to get a straight chainline.  In this case all the extra threads on the “free” side of a fixed/free hub would be a benefit and allow you to get a 47mm chainline by inserting 5mm of spacers between the hub shoulder and freewheel.  But of course doing so would make the other side of the hub unusable, because any cog you theaded on the fixed side will have ~42mm chainline.

So if you’re using a bike with an incorrectly set up front chainline measurement, for some reason don’t want to correct your front chainline problem, and only want to use a singlespeed freewheel then a fix/free hub might be the ticket.