# Reviews of ENO Hub?



## Gus8 (Sep 17, 2002)

Hi,
I have seen some comments on the White Industries ENO hub from some people that indicate they weren't really happy with the set-up and others who seem to have been pleased. I'm really interested in trying this out but I'd like to hear from as many as possible who have had some experience with this part. What did you like or not like? Problems or praise? If you could let us know what the good and bad points were rather than if you liked it or not I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.


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## CFBlue (Jun 28, 1999)

*me no likey*

former comments

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=3324


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## Gregory Taylor (Mar 29, 2002)

*I wrote this last week...*

[I wrote this for a cycling website last week -- they may or may not use it. Hope that it helps.]

On Test: White Industries “Eric’s Eccentric ENO” Single Speed Hub

By Greg “One Gear” Taylor

Okay, admit it: single speed bikes are cool. One gear, no excuses. Old school. Hard core. Want to go faster? Simple. Pedal faster. 

Not so simple is coming up with the goods to build a single speed or, better yet, a fixed gear bike for the road. Track bikes are one option. Designed from the get-go as a single-speed, the down side is that track geometry can be a little skittish on the road, and some forks/framesets aren't drilled for brakes. 

The other option is to build your own. The "traditional" way to build up a fixed gear bike for street use is to come up with an old road frame with horizontal dropouts in the back. Why horizontal dropouts? One word: adjustability. Without a derailleur, you need to be able to move the rear wheel back and forth in the frame in order to adjust chain tension. Horizontal dropouts allow for that sort that adjustability. 

But what if you already have a killer frameset hanging in the shop, just waiting to be built up into a new project? You know the one: the feather-light carbon and Sputnik-metal Team Issue wonder-frame ridden by Cipo himself that you snagged off of E-Bay. The one with the vertical rear dropouts? What if you want to turn that into a fixie?

No worries. We have the answer. 

White Industries (Petaluma, California) has come up with a really quality piece of kit -- the "Eric's Eccentric ENO" hub -- that allows you to turn a frameset with vertical dropouts in a fixed gear flyer without too much fuss. No, I don’t know who Eric is. What I do know is that he must be one very clever ******* indeed because his contribution toward solving the world’s Vertical Dropout Dilemma is really quite brilliant. In order to introduce some adjustability into the set up to take out slack in the chain, White Industries has designed the Eccentric ENO hub with a special set of stainless steel axle ends. These fittings mount the wheel in the dropout at a point that is offset from the centerline of the hub. This offset introduces an eccentric motion in the hub if you rotate it in the dropout. The eccentric motion generates 15mm worth of fore and aft travel per 180 degrees of rotation, which is used to adjust chain tension.

It all sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is. A quick peak at the pictures should make it all clear. Simple. Elegant. Clever.

But does it work?

The answer is yes, with a few caveats.

First, the hardware. The White Industries Eccentric ENO is a “flip/flop” rear hub. For the non-fixed-gear fluent, that means that the hub is threaded on both right and left hand sides. One side is threaded to take a BMX-style freewheel, for those who like to coast occasionally. The other side is threaded to accept a track cog and lock ring, for those who think coasting is overrated. If you set it up right, you can use two different (but not too different) sized cogs on either side, allowing you to stop mid-ride, flip the wheel, and pick your gearing to match the terrain. 

In terms of quality and materials, the Eccentric ENO is a beauty. I'd put it right up there with other high-end boutique components. Maybe not quite in the Phil Wood class in terms of finish, but the ENO is still very, very nice. The hub body is hand-polished aluminum, and comes in 28-, 32-, and 36-hole drillings. The eccentric axle ends and hardware are nicely machined and finished stainless steel. The hub spins on two 6902-2S Enduro bearings that are wrapped around an aluminum axle. The Eccentric ENO is robust enough for mountain bike duty, and can be ordered with 126mm, 130mm, or 135mm spacing. While I didn't weigh the hub, the advertised weight is 224 grams (135mm w/o bolts). That’s plenty light. 

My test hub was purchased to "fix" a Cannondale CAAD3 that I had hanging around the shop. Yes, just like Cipo used to ride a couple of years ago when he was with the SAECO squad. As this is also my putative “race” bike, I wanted to see if I could come up with a combination of parts that would allow me to convert it into a fixed gear monster and then back to its “normal” configuration with little effort. The ENO seemed to be the perfect tool to make that happen. 

After a consultation with our local sage of the spoke wrench, Carl “Curly” Rice, I settled on building the wheel using DT/Swiss Alpine III spokes laced to a Mavic Open Pro rim. The Alpine III’s are intended for high torque situations. Double butted and with lots of meat on either end, they are just the ticket for tandems, loaded touring bikes, and big guys grunting up big hills while trying to push a big gear. Curly is justly famous for turning out some absolutely killer wheels, so it was an honor and a privilege when he took the time to show me a few of his wheel building secrets then turned me loose in his machine shop with all of his tools and his brand new, canary yellow Harley Davidson. When Curly wasn’t looking I would sneak over to the Harley and make goofy motorcycle sounds while pretending to be a moto at the Tour de France. 

The result of my afternoon’s work was a quality wheel using top-shelf components built under the watchful eye of a craftsman. In short: a beauty. However, life was not all titties and beer down in Eccentric ENO-land because the process of fitting and adjusting wheel on the bike served up a few unexpected surprises. 

Slipping the wheel into the dropouts and moving the ENO around on the eccentric, I immediately noticed a couple of things. While it may depend on the design and size of your particular frame, I found that there are some positions where the hub just won’t work on a 54 cm CAAD3 Cannondale. For example, rotating the eccentric so that the wheel is in the “full forward” position jams the tire into the seat tube. Not good. The “full up” position wedges the tire into the brake bridge. Also not good. If you are running a rear brake – highly recommended if you intend to use a freewheel – some positions can drop the braking area of the rim below the adjustment limits of a short-reach brake caliper, the common fitment on most modern road bikes. Really not good, especially if you have to use the lower position because of a clearance problem with the brake bridge. 

Again, I suspect that the severity of this particular problem depends on the design and size of your particular frameset. It’s more of an annoyance than anything else, and it certainly didn’t prevent me from using the wheel. And as for the rear brake, you can pick up a long-reach caliper fairly cheaply from a number of sources. Boiling it all down, the big thing to remember is that you really have to do the initial set up the Eccentric ENO with the tire on the rim in order to determine whether you have any clearance issues. 

Once you determine which (if any) wheel positions are verboten, the trick then becomes finding the right combination of chain length and hub orientation. This involves a bit of trial and error and a judicious use of your chain tool. Overall, this process was relatively profanity-free and, despite the clearance issues, I was able to quickly find a usable combination. A fresh chain (I like SRAM chains – the detachable Power-Link makes it easy to swap things back to the geared configuration), a little lube, and I was in business.

So, how does it work? Just fine, thank you. The hub rolls smoooooth, and the eccentric has held its adjustment despite my best efforts to make it slip. Again, the ENO is a quality piece, and once you get it sorted out it definitely works as advertised. Performance-wise, the only real question mark that I have is a ridiculously mundane one: how to handle a flat tire out on the road. Removing the wheel to change a tube isn’t the problem. It’s the process of buttoning it all up after you’re done, tightening the wheel bolts and adjusting the eccentric to take up the chain slack, that gives me a little pause. I’ve found that you really need to use a wrench to hold the eccentric in place when you tighten the wheel bolts, so I now carry an adjustable spanner in my kit when I ride the ENO. The other alternative is to patch the tube in situ without removing the wheel from the frame. Actually, this is how I handle flats on my other fixed gear bike and, short of a catastrophic blowout, those little glueless patches made by Park work perfectly for this. 

So what’s the bottom line with the White Industries Eric’s Eccentric ENO? It’s a nice piece that works very well once you get it set up. The workmanship and materials are excellent. But, for me, the best thing about the ENO is its sheer cleverness. Good bike gear is clever, and the Eccentric ENO is extremely clever. It provides an elegant solution for those who want to ride a single speed/fixed gear bike but don’t necessarily want to shell out the money for a dedicated single speed frameset. 


[I give it four jerseys – out of five

Pros: beautifully made, really clever, works well
Con: some set up hassles, especially if you want to run a rear brake


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## CFBlue (Jun 28, 1999)

*overly gracious?*

This is a follow-up to my other review, after reading yours. I think I'd give it a 1 out of 5. To me, it's a kludge. It's an elegant promise that falls completely flat in practice. The hassles with setup, chain length, tightening down, and rim position, especially for a brake, makes it a very poor solution -- you are far better off just getting a real track end frame. Now that I hacked up my nice steel Bianchi frame, removing all signs of derailleurs (my stupidity), I suppose I'm stuck with the ENO or else I junk the frame. It bugs me that I had to buy a cheapo Tektro long reach brake to run on the rear (running it as single speed now), rather than the Campy Record I already had.

It bugs me that I spent money on this hub, money and time personally to build a wheel for it, time to modify my frame, then have this ghetto (is there a more PC term for that?) rigged sort of half-arsed working solution. I wish I had never heard of it. 

I would highly recommend to people that if you want a reliable, well working single speed or fixed bike, forego the ENO and get a horizontal drop out or track end frame. I think people will be much happier in the short and long run.

Sorry for the rant, but I take my bicycle function very, very seriously, and like things to work flawlessly. If they don't I change it. I'll try lots of new things, and will gladly recommend a product if it works. This one does not, though, in my eperience. I also take seriously a sort of self-imposed obligation (as I have for years here) to let people know about good or bad products, at least in my experience, which much be somewhat representative. While your review does highlight some of the positive aspects of the hub, I think it goes far to easy on the negatives.

By the way, I emailed and had three or four telephone conversations with the White Industries people about the hub. I made some suggestions, but they in a very kind way just told that they would not be changing anything. I was particularly concerned about getting proper chain tension when changing a tire on the road, and the guy there just said to run it a little loose. To me, that's not acceptable for a fixed gear bike, maybe less so for a single speed. It could be dangerous, as noted by Sheldon Brown ("The chain tension on a fixed gear is quite critical... If the chain is too loose, it can fall off, which is quite dangerous on a fixed gear."). So, my ENO is relegated to single speed use.

Doug


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## Gregory Taylor (Mar 29, 2002)

*Hey, It's An Informed Rant!*

It's funny, but I'm delighted with the thing. I too take my bike function seriously and, yes, the ENO isn't the perfect solution, as I discussed in the review. Setting up a frameset with vertical dropouts as a fixed gear will always be compromise -- the frame simply isn't designed for that function. The best solution is, of course, a frame with horizontal drop outs. With that in mind, I just can't fault the design of the ENO too much if fails to deliver an absolutely, OEM-perfect solution. It's a compromise, and I just didn't find the downsides that popped up to be all that major. 

Hey, it's just my opinion, but even with the set-up issues I still wound up with a nicely functional, sharp-looking fixed gear that is, thus far, performing flawlessly. I guess that I'm seeing the glass half full versus half empty -- I'm able to run my Cannondale as a fixie, and it's a very cool thing to be able to do.


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## CFBlue (Jun 28, 1999)

*set-up*

I suspect that whether someone is pleased with this hub will depend a lot upon where the eccentric ends up as a result of their chain stay length and gear ratios. If it ends up around the 9 o'clock position, it could be very easy to set up, and then there may not be a brake length issue. Mine seems to end up right at 6 o'clock no matter what I do. 

Doug



Gregory Taylor said:


> It's funny, but I'm delighted with the thing. I too take my bike function seriously and, yes, the ENO isn't the perfect solution, as I discussed in the review. Setting up a frameset with vertical dropouts as a fixed gear will always be compromise -- the frame simply isn't designed for that function. The best solution is, of course, a frame with horizontal drop outs. With that in mind, I just can't fault the design of the ENO too much if fails to deliver an absolutely, OEM-perfect solution. It's a compromise, and I just didn't find the downsides that popped up to be all that major.
> 
> Hey, it's just my opinion, but even with the set-up issues I still wound up with a nicely functional, sharp-looking fixed gear that is, thus far, performing flawlessly. I guess that I'm seeing the glass half full versus half empty -- I'm able to run my Cannondale as a fixie, and it's a very cool thing to be able to do.


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## Gregory Taylor (Mar 29, 2002)

*You Are Right On That Score...*

If you have a set up that permits an "optimal" position on the eccentric, there would be very few issues to mention. I think that the ENO is less forgiving of a "racing" type frame with tighter clearances (seat tube and brake bridge) than say a mountain, touring, or cross frame. 

I was looking at it again last night and wondering if White could get away with a smaller offset on the eccentric. Maybe the other way to attack it would be to set the wheel in the position that you want (without the chain) so that brakes reach, etc., and measure the "effective" chainstay length (crank center to rear hub center). You could then use something like the "Fix Me Up" program to pick the gearing combo that works best for the "effective" chainstay length. I haven't tried this....but I wonder if you could get it decently close. 

Out of curiousity, you mentioned that you passed along some suggestions to White on how they could improve the ENO. What did you suggest?


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## CFBlue (Jun 28, 1999)

*suggestions*



Gregory Taylor said:


> Out of curiousity, you mentioned that you passed along some suggestions to White on how they could improve the ENO. What did you suggest?


My suggestions:

*1. make the washer that goes between the outer bolt and the dropout flat on two sides, so that it cannot twist while tightening the bolt or applying chain tension. This would help to keep it from creeping. Also, having some serrations on it might help.

2. Supply a flat or serrated washer that goes between the main washer and the dropout, at least on the drive side, that also has a 90 degree tab on it that fits the dropout slot. Then, it could not turn and creep.

3. Supply the eccentric hub ends in several lengths of offset, or maybe with two drillings for the bolts, so that if one offset did not work for a particular application, another might. While the standard is 7.5mm, also having 5.0 or 10.0 might solve some problems with particular gearing/stay lengths. "Simply" make them longer with two threaded bolts holes on each side instead of one.

4. Invent a chain tug that works with vertical and semi-horizontal dropouts.

*


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## scrublover (Oct 1, 2002)

works beautifully for me. had it on two frames so far. a 2000 giant tcr team (aluminum) for about three months, with no problems. took me all of about 15 minutes to do the initial setup, once i had the wheel. slipped on the first two short outings, until i had a feel for how tight it needed to be cranked. no slippage since then. it's now been on a steel 2002 bianchi eros frame for the last 4 months, and it's working wonderfully. no slippage on this frame at all. 

i can't speak to the brake isssue, as i've run it exclusively fixed, and have not run a rear brake. 

tons of great reviews/tips on the mtbr.com SS board. i think they have fewer problems, as most of the frames being used by those guys have larger clearance, and mtb brakes (canti or v) have greater adjustability of pad height. 

one of those things that works great for some, and not so great for others. 
i think it's a great fix if you already have a frame/parts you love, and only need the wheel to go fixed. 

however, if starting from scratch, you may as well go for a whole prebuilt fixed bike or frame/parts.


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## joe friday (Jun 15, 2003)

Doug,
I've got a Tektro headband you're welcome to...


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## colker1 (Jan 2, 2003)

Now that I hacked up my nice steel Bianchi frame, removing all signs of derailleurs (my stupidity), I suppose I'm stuck with the ENO or else I junk the frame. It bugs me that I had to buy a cheapo Tektro long reach brake to run on the rear (running it as single speed now), rather than the Campy Record I already had.

hey doug, what if you (i mean, a builder) swap/ braze a new set of drop outs on that frame? could some trad. horiz campys braze down there? someone would paint it again (more $$).. that thing is a beauty and must live again.
when i read you were already hacking/ sawing things i got some chivers. why not finish the job?
another dislike of eno is messing w/ bike geom. bb height and drop, seat and head angle go down when you rotate that thing around. on a mtn bike, fine. on a tight geom. road frame... i don't know.


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## CFBlue (Jun 28, 1999)

*you're right*

I think I will, especially if I can find a local builder to do it. I'll just sell the ENO wheel, then. 

Doug


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## soulFixed (Jan 2, 2003)

*Doug... About the ENO wheel...*

If you're really gonna ditch the ENO - I'm in the market for just such a wheel. I guess I should inquire as to the complete build: rims, spokes, nipples, pattern as I intent on using it for CX and medium duty trail use. AS much as I like building my own wheels (and I may still), I'm always looking to save a little/cash if the opportunity arises. So, I hope I'm not being to forward, but please let me know if and when you're ready to sell the wheel.

Thanks,
jeff


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## CFBlue (Jun 28, 1999)

*will keep in mind*

I'm actively looking for track ends that will work and a builder to replace them for me. After that, I'll look at selling the ENO wheel, or at least the hub.

The ENO wheel has a Mavic Open Pro silver rim, 32 hole, 3x, DT 14/15/14 spokes, brass nipples. I built the wheel, which is true and trouble free (I'm a fanatic about his sort of thing). That's about as "standard" as it gets, I suppose.

Doug



soulFixed said:


> If you're really gonna ditch the ENO - I'm in the market for just such a wheel. I guess I should inquire as to the complete build: rims, spokes, nipples, pattern as I intent on using it for CX and medium duty trail use. AS much as I like building my own wheels (and I may still), I'm always looking to save a little/cash if the opportunity arises. So, I hope I'm not being to forward, but please let me know if and when you're ready to sell the wheel.
> 
> Thanks,
> jeff


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## ErNestO_from_Wisconsin (Feb 14, 2004)

*Yikes!*



DougSloan said:


> This is a follow-up to my other review, after reading yours. I think I'd give it a 1 out of 5. To me, it's a kludge. It's an elegant promise that falls completely flat in practice. The hassles with setup, chain length, tightening down, and rim position, especially for a brake, makes it a very poor solution -- you are far better off just getting a real track end frame. Now that I hacked up my nice steel Bianchi frame, removing all signs of derailleurs (my stupidity), I suppose I'm stuck with the ENO or else I junk the frame. It bugs me that I had to buy a cheapo Tektro long reach brake to run on the rear (running it as single speed now), rather than the Campy Record I already had.
> 
> It bugs me that I spent money on this hub, money and time personally to build a wheel for it, time to modify my frame, then have this ghetto (is there a more PC term for that?) rigged sort of half-arsed working solution. I wish I had never heard of it.
> 
> ...


I have had no problems with mine. I am the dood who put together the new ENO site, and I did it because I love the product. All my vert drop bikes now have the ENO. My Surly is a fixie thanks to the ENO. http://www.adventurefind.com/hbfk/eno1.html
Sure that's more SS mtb stuff related, but I swear by the product. At first, yes, it is a little cumbersome, but you learn from it. It is perfect for fixed applications. I am also using one for my other fixie project: http://www.adventurefind.com/bikes.html


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## velodoom (May 12, 2004)

DougSloan said:


> I'm actively looking for track ends that will work and a builder to replace them for me. After that, I'll look at selling the ENO wheel, or at least the hub.
> 
> The ENO wheel has a Mavic Open Pro silver rim, 32 hole, 3x, DT 14/15/14 spokes, brass nipples. I built the wheel, which is true and trouble free (I'm a fanatic about his sort of thing). That's about as "standard" as it gets, I suppose.
> 
> Doug


doug - you might want to look at the henry james website - they sell the track drops for $40 a pair. also - as for a builder you might want to try Curtlo. They aren't local, but I bought a custom mtn bike from them a little under a year ago and the build quality was top notch. he quoted me an approximate (depending on time necessary) cost of $75 for the dropout replacement, and $125 for powdercoating to convert a 1994 specialized allez comp lugged steel frame i have as my spare bike.


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