As the bike industry sometimes forgets, the best solutions start with a problem. Mine was simple enough - a bunch of different wheels to use for the massive tubeless cross tire test we did a while ago, mechanical disc brakes that don't have much pad clearance, and not wanting to readjust brake caliper position at each wheel swap. So I fired up the internet for what was certain to be an easy search and... nothing. No center lock rotor shims to be found anywhere. Owning a perfectly operably micrometer and a semi-operable brain, I ordered commercially available shims, modified them to suit my purpose and... success!!
As disc use proliferated, a bunch of friends and customers asked if I had a solution for the issue, which I gladly shared, but many of them expressed a preference for a turn key solution, so the first version of our center lock rotor disc shims was born. They worked great, and soon we were selling a bunch of them, but while the functionality was great we wanted to clean up the fit a bit (I'm a tad OCD about these things), so we committed to the deep dive of having a WHOLE BUNCH of them made to our exact specs. And version 2 was born.
The shims are .25mm thick, which is thin enough to be precise and thick enough to make a difference, and come in a pack of 4. If you need to move your rotors more than 1mm to get them aligned, something funky is going on and you probably want to have it checked out. So one pack is usually enough to do a set of wheels.
It honestly freaks us out how many people order these suckers just by word of mouth. When something works, it works. When you buy a set of wheels from us, whether the new RCG36 (seriously, nicest wheels we've ever made), GX24 wheels (which we haven't even told you about yet!) HED Belgium+ disc wheels, Boyd Altamont disc wheels, Easton disc wheels, or any of the other road/cross/gravel, 650b, or mountain disc wheels we make, you'll get a pack of four included so you can swap wheels as seamlessly as we do. Or you could just order a pack of shims. But order the wheels. Because #newwheelday is the best day.
5 comments
Chris – Sure there is. You would just need a shim that’s 34mm inner diameter (or a little bit bigger) and then about .1mm thick. Outer diameter wouldn’t be critical but you’d want to keep it under about 50mm. McMaster-Carr part # 97022A155 might work well for you, it’s a bit thinner than .1mm so you’d need a few to make a difference, but it could work well.
Is there a way to adjust the cassettes spacing from the hub, so that they are precisely positioned between different wheelsets and doesn’t have to be adjusted? Thanks.
Moby – Awesome!
Eric – The 6 bolt ones are relatively readily available, but we will likely do them just to have the full complement of solutions for people.
Brilliant. Will you produce shims for 6 bolt rotors?
Love these – order a set for my gravel race bikes that regularly uses 3 different wheel sets. One rotor was slightly off and these fixed it right up. I’ve used 6 bolt versions for years, great to have a CL version.