The "official" Nimbus Oracle (disc brake) MUni thread

[mowcius]

203mm still looks big on a 29er...



Work in progress - hopefully get the whole thing built finished and built up tomorrow (today).

For anyone interested - the KH29 spokes on the current model are 287mm 14G as stock (UDC UK still lists their 13G spokes for KH24 and KH29)
I went for 288/286 for non-disk/disk side and it seems to work out pretty well.
DT Comp's do come with slightly shorter nipples than the stock spokes.

On that note, as the UDC spoke calculator came out with just over 290/289 for the oracle hub, I wouldn't trust it yet if you're building the wheel yourself.

[mowcius]

I knew I shouldn't have done it so late at night - the lacing's wrong...

Ahh well - I'll sort it out later.

[Nurse Ben]

My dual hole (165/137) KH Moment cranks are nearly as heavy (586g) as the Oracle frame! I will be getting some single hole 150mm cranks when Kris drops his new line of Moments.

You might want to get the current Moments before they are all gone, rumor has it that the new Moments will have a larger q factor for caliper clearance. Also, the double holes are not much heaver than the single holes, two holes are better than one

That Oracle still looks kinda clean, ain't you been out trashin on that thing yet?

Been riding the beejeesus out of my new disc wheeled muni, nice ride, love the brake, the wet performance is worth the extra weightand cost.

By next week I will have four Nimbus D brake equipped unis:
KH 26er
KH 29er
Oregon 26er
Nimbus 36er XC

[OutdoorJunkie]

Originally Posted by dmacuni

Hi all,

My new oracle 29er wheel arrived from municycle.com in Germany yesterday (Wednesday). I got straight to work installing it in my Triton 29er ( frame custom made in 2009), but little did I know....

Cheers,

Dmac

Great idea with the magura mounts!

Originally Posted by Eddbmxdude

Got mine built up last night
Tyre rubs on the frame because the rim is so badly buckled, it won't true enough to stop it rubbing so I'll have to get a new rim and relace the wheel.

The brake is so powerful, im going to be able to ride some stupidly steep stuff with it!

Looks sweeeet! Is that a 24''? Also what length cranks?

[saskatchewanian]

Originally Posted by mowcius

I knew I shouldn't have done it so late at night - the lacing's wrong...

Ahh well - I'll sort it out later.

I did that once, lacing a 32h rim to a 48h hub while talking to friends and drinking then wondering why my spokes were longer than expected.

I was sort of embarrassed when my mistake was pointed out.

[Eddbmxdude]

Originally Posted by OutdoorJunkie

Looks sweeeet! Is that a 24''? Also what length cranks?

Yeah its a 24", im running 137 cranks

[mowcius]

Originally Posted by saskatchewanian

I did that once, lacing a 32h rim to a 48h hub while talking to friends and drinking then wondering why my spokes were longer than expected.

I was sort of embarrassed when my mistake was pointed out.

Haha - I just realised it looked wrong and spokes seemed longer than they should have been.
Didn't take too long to sort out, just swapping a few round.

[mowcius]

All done.



Pretty happy with it. Those DT competition alloy nipples are a bit short really and I could do with a new spoke key...

Just need to finish modifying a spooner now and get some proper cable clips on rather than my temporary HS33 mount hack

As for the brake itself - the performance is good and the bleeding was easy but I wouldn't recommend it the same as I'd recommend the older HS33s as rim brakes. The new HS33/HS11s and these MT# brakes aren't going to survive knocks anywhere near as well as the older models.

[mowcius]

More done

Got my usual arsenal of things back on now:
Front light - Magicshine MJ808 with battery pack above.
Rear light - Knog skink behind battery pack.
Cycle computer - Cateye strada wireless.

and a modified KH spooner (didn't want to hack into the nice brake lever)



More pics on my G+:
https://plus.google.com/photos/11491...19257389511585

Now for a proper review on the brake setup as I've ridden it a bit more.

The nimbus hub looks great, very similar to the current KH hubs but with a larger centre - thankfully they're glued and pinned now to stop the creaking experienced on the first new style KH moment hubs and the prototype disk hubs.

The spoke holes are a bit smaller than the moment hub holes and not very chamfered on either side. This made some of my spokes rather tighter than they should have been and made me a little concerned when building the wheel up but so far ir's all good - partly as the hub flanges are aluminium so softer than the spokes.

Apart from the spoke holes seemingly having being designed for 15g spokes the wheelbuild went pretty smoothly - 2mm difference in spokes is pretty much perfect but with my DT comps I could have probably gone with another mm due to the shorter nipples.

Getting the disk on was easy enough, the second bearing was a very snug fit (even with a little extra lubrication) and I'm not looking foward to the day when I have to take it off again.

The wheel then went in the frame perfectly and the machined d-brake also fitted on the bearing like a glove.

Adjusting the brake took quite a while to get it perfect but the mounts on the hub and on the d'brake are definitely spot on.

You are going to need to shorten the brake hose, whatever hydraulic brake you get, so I'd suggest you make sure you've got the tools to do it before you start - also having the tools and fluid to bleed the system would be a good idea.

After modification of a spooner, braking felt fantastic and the modulation and smoothness really has to be tried to understand how much nicer it is than HS33s on a rim.

In mud and water (it's been raining a lot here so had no issues finding some to ride in), the performance felt as good as it had been in the dry but my pads aren't bedded in yet so that will only get better. Having a constant grinding sound coming from the disk was a little annoying (on my HS33s they were adjusted far enough away so that if I started to get a noise, a quick press on the brakes for a rotation to remove the mud and it was gone) but as braking performance didn't seem to be reduced it's something I can live with.

For someone who's used to rim brakes, quick braking on a disk is a bit weird, it does feel different, not just due to the modulation but due to the wheel twisting a bit as you brake - perhaps rim brakes are less harsh on your spokes... I trust my lacing abilities

The unicycle as a whole obviously looks awesome but there is a slight gain in weight - with the 203mm disk and slightly heavier hub etc I'd guess at a few hundred grams, which I suppose is a lot, it's worth it though.

[Feisty]

I found overall I lost weight but then I had a steel Nimbus hub which was 35g lighter than the disc hub but my 160mm brake was lighter than the HS33

[DavidHood]

Originally Posted by DavidHood

OMG. I've got to get one of these helmets. It's red and it's called the Oracle for goodness sake! It's like Bontrager coordinated with UDC. I have been using my road (mirror installed) helmet for MUni. Not working! Nonetheless $180 is a little out of my price range. Anyone suggest a cheaper brain bucket? It does not have to be this pretty but must be light and well ventilated.

I got myself a dedicated MUni helmet. I tried on the Bontrager Oracle helmet and it felt REALLY nice but I ended up settling for the Bontrager Quantum. It is one step up from the cheapest at $65. It comes in 4 sizes (for a more accurate fit) and my LBS owner was patient to let me try on 3 of the 4. I got the Medium and yes I did get the red, white, and black to match my Oracle. I can't ride for shit but I look good trying!

[Nurse Ben]

I posted somewhere in a thread about the weight different between a magura hs33/nimbus hub and a "typical" disc brake/nimbus sisc hub, but if memory serves me well the disc brake set up is considerably heavier, 250 gm or so.

For weight weenies who want brakes, maguras are light and powerful, but if you want wet weather performance and ease of set up/wheel swapping, then the Nimbus Oracle hub is sweet.

[jrwi]

OK, so I've got my 26" Oracle wheel made up by UDC UK and all my other bits together, just waiting for the Maxxis High Roller from CRC and I'm ready to rock.

BUT I'm going to get the KH frame powder-coated first and would also like to remove the brake bosses. How would that be done? I'm imagining that removing them would leave me with a nice smooth, bossless frame, and not one with twisted, ugly scars instead, of course. Other than utilizing one for cable routing, and the probable resale value reduction, any reason not to?

I can't find anything on the forum about this with the searches I've tried - lots of threads mention adding brake bosses, of course...

[Nurse Ben]

BUT I'm going to get the KH frame powder-coated first and would also like to remove the brake bosses. How would that be done? I'm imagining that removing them would leave me with a nice smooth, bossless frame, and not one with twisted, ugly scars instead, of course. Other than utilizing one for cable routing, and the probable resale value reduction, any reason not to?

Don't do it, you may want them someday and you can't add them back as easilly as you can remove them.

If you must, try grinding/cutting them off with a dremel.

Will it weaken the frame? Maybe, but it'll certainly void the warranty

If you don't like the color, why not buy a Nimbus Oracle frame?

Between the bead blasting necessary to remove the blue paint and getting the powder coating applied, I spent a whole lot of cash on my gold KH frame; $100USD

[jrwi]

Originally Posted by Nurse Ben

Don't do it, you may want them someday and you can't add them back as easilly as you can remove them.

If you must, try grinding/cutting them off with a dremel.

Ah, as I half expected, sounds like it's going to be too much bother and risky for what it's worth. I don't expect I'll really notice them or care once I'm riding the thing...

Originally Posted by Nurse Ben

If you don't like the color, why not buy a Nimbus Oracle frame?

I wasn't going to go with black, though! Oh, and it's the 29" frame as I'll be adding a 29" Oracle wheel set later so I can swap (if I decide to just get a full uni at the time since the wheel is the expensive part anyway, I'll just get the 26" frame when I get the 29" wheel...)

Originally Posted by Nurse Ben

Between the bead blasting necessary to remove the blue paint and getting the powder coating applied, I spent a whole lot of cash on my gold KH frame; $100USD

It's not that I've got anything against the KH blue, and I've already spent a lump of cash putting this thing together, so the powder coating idea may well die anyway, particularly once I've put it together and realised I don't really care about the colour when I'm riding it. OTOH, I've already spent a lump of cash putting this thing together, might as well be what I originally envisaged.