I'm searching for carbon wheels for my 2018 Tallboy and am seeing options for Torque Cap or standard on XD driver. Can I choose either?
Torque cap vs Standard
babazaroni
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I'm searching for carbon wheels for my 2018 Tallboy and am seeing options for Torque Cap or standard on XD driver. Can I choose either?
Torque Caps are only on Rockshox forks. They're supposed to make the fork wheel combo stiffer. I'm not sure I've ever felt a difference myself.
You can use a hub without torque caps on RS fork designed for torque caps, but if you remove the front wheel a lot for transportation, it can become annoying to remount it since you have to align it by feel.
If you get hubs with the Caps, you are stuck using Rockshox forks unless you swap out the end caps for normal ones when you switch forks.
Bottom line, if you don't have a RS fork, then don't get the torque cap option. If you have a RS fork, you can go either.
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Thanks, I'll have to get rockshox fork then. I'm converting 29er to 27.5 fat tires, and Santa Cruz recommends changing the fork as well.
Some hubs (ive just built some hope pro4 hubs up) have push in pull off endcaps which makes swapping between forks really easy.
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I had them on my last bike. Can't say I ever really noticed the difference in stiffness, but if you're replacing your fork and front hub anyway and you are getting a RockShox fork, you might as well get them. Like the others said...you can get front hubs that have end caps that can easily swap from torque cap to regular 15mm thru in case you did ever change from the RockShox fork to something else.
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I recall seeing somewhere somebody offering crescent shaped pieces that can be stuck inside torque cap forks to easily align normal axles. In my experience, putting a wheel with a normal axle into a torque cap fork is a bit fiddly, but not really a significant issue.
Torque caps might make a (small?) difference with a SRAM Predictive Steering hub, which is constructed with it's own internal large diameter axle and bearings.
Torque caps might make a (small?) difference with a SRAM Predictive Steering hub, which is constructed with it's own internal large diameter axle and bearings.
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Beware, not all Rockshox forks accept Torque Caps. I have a 2017/2018 Pike that does not fit torque caps. I learned the hard way, after listening to everyone on here saying Torque Caps are for Rockshox forks, I ordered a new carbon wheel set with torque caps that did not fit my Rockshox Pike forks. Make sure you check your forks before ordering torque caps!
Except that you can buy the actual torque caps and their improved performance for like $15 instead.
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Thanks for importing those and charging a very fair shipping cost. I got a set last week and they are brilliant.
Yep. Pike torque cap compatibility started with the B series forks.
No thanks. Whatever perceived increase in stiffness ain't worth the hassle when trying to get the bike on my roof rack. Not to mention, my new pike has the most rigid lowers of any fork I've owned. Takes quite a bit of strength just to get the lowers to spread apart a few millimeters. I didn't try that for any particular reason, I was just curious. Doing the same thing to an A series fork is a lot easier.
Are you saying torque caps don't fit in your roof rack? They are just different hub end caps that stay in place. They are not wider, just a few mm larger diameter.
Also the fork stiffness you reference (RS is much stiffer than Fox btw) is different from the stiffness that Torque Caps address, which is helping preventing the wheel from twisting at the hub. TC's strive to keep the front wheel axle perpendicular to the forks.
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IMO, torque caps do very little if the internal axle in the hub isn't correspondingly bigger in diameter, as it is with the so called "Predictive Steering" hubs.
The only reason I fitted torques to mine (hppe pro4 15mm axle) was to make it easier to fit it in the dropouts.
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The fork won't line up with the fork holder. So you've got one hand on the downtube, trying not to drop the bike on your roof, and the axle in the other hand, trying to get it in the fork holder that no longer lines up automatically. F that. I'm sure Kuat and whoever else will end up making fork holders with wide ends like torque caps, but I don't care. This flex issue hasn't been a thing since they stopped making forks with open dropouts.
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You're welcome! Kind of a break-even thing for us (I hope) but too cool not to bring in batches of 50 or so when we can.
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