The more I ride the LeMond the more I like it:
Unfortunately, the more I like a bike the more I’m inclined to fuss with it, and the latest object of my fussing has been the wheels.
The wheels that came with the bike are the so-called Rolf Prima Elan Aero, and the company still offers essentially the same wheel today, though without the aero spokes. They are almost shockingly light, and while I wouldn’t seek out an ultra-light wheel myself they are fun to ride. At the same time, ultra-light wheels are like linen pants: while they feel great and you’re tempted to wear them all the time, in the back of your mind you’re always a little bit worried that somethings going to go wrong. (With the ultra-light wheel, that could be a broken spoke, and with the linen pants that could be a rain shower that renders them totally transparent.) For everyday riding you want a wheel that’s like a pair of well-worn jeans: comfy and relatively light, and yet reassuringly robust. For that reason the wheels I really wanted to use on the LeMond were these:
They’re the only thing I have left of the Litespeed:
And they’re a fitting choice for the LeMond in that it’s sort of the Litespeed’s successor. The only problem is that they’re Campagnolo hubs, and the Litespeed uses Shimano.
Campagnolo of course hasn’t offered hubs in many years. They hit their peak in that department with the exquisite Record 10-speed hub, which is why delusional people think they can get over $500 for them:
And the hubs on these wheels are the final version of the Record hub, which is functionally the same, albeit in black and with all the aesthetically pleasing stuff removed from it.
But while Campagnolo no longer sell hubs, they do sell wheels, both under their own name and under the Fulcrum brand:
The full name of the wheel is presumably not the Sharquille O’Neal, though the weird character at the end does suggest that at one point it was called the Shart and they changed it at the very last second:
Anyway, obviously in order to sell lots of wheels Campagnolo have to make them compatible with Shimano-splined cassettes, and fortunately their pre-built wheels use essentially the same hub design as those final Record hubs, which means you can just get a Shimano freehub body and stick it on there:
Sure, it may be jarring to see a Shimano spline pattern in a Campagnolo box:
But in making the switch it opens up a whole new world of cassette availability.
So I got to work. For a competent person, working on a Record hub is about as simple as it gets. First I removed the cassette:
Then I removed this nut:
And then I pulled the freehub body off the axle:
Easy!
From there all I had to do was pop the new one on in its place:
So I wiped off the grime from the hub and lubed the pawls on the new freehub body:
Then I slid the new freehub body on, gave it a spin, and…it was grinding like a spoke in a garbage disposal.
Removing the new freehub body, I found that the circular pawl spring was all mangled:
As I noted above, servicing Record hubs is easy for a competent person. I, however, am incompetent, and by not taking the time to carefully seat the pawls I probably managed to dislodge the spring–though in my defense the spring is tiny and delicate and about as easy to see and work with as a pubic hair.
Anyway, I wasn’t about to be undone by a pube, so I carefully removed the spring from the old freehub body:
This time I inserted the freehub body with more care, and the operation was a success:
Fortunately these springs are easy to get and once I have a replacement I’ll put the old Campy freehub back together in case I ever need to revert.
