I may be a dork ... but this ain't no Dork Disc

Stainless spoke protector custom adapted from a lowrider

Road cyclists can occasionally puzzle me with their silly rules about what belongs on a bike. Of the perfectly sensible things that seem to cause them consternation - mirrors, kickstands, bells - spoke protectors seem to genuinely make them a bit unhinged. But if you know how to adjust the deralller correctly you'll never need it. NEVER. NEVVVVVERRRRR!

I tend to think this reveals a little ... well, insecurity. It tends to come from road cyclists who don't maintain their own bike, certainly didn't build it, doesn't get it muddy and ride only in nice conditions on well-surfaced roads.

And there's nothing wrong with that!

But - as someone who build my bike up from scratch and who pathologically rides it through knee-high mud and over the moors - the idea that it's impossible to overshift and it'll never happen if you have the derailler limits set just isn't true. It doesn't matter how careful you are - deraillers get bashed, and shifting the chain behind your cassette is a spoke-mangling disaster. A spoke protector is cheap insurance against that.

I do agree that your bog-standard plastic spoke protectors look pretty bad, though. Moreover, they have a tendency to disintegrate when exposed to UV, and to end up as little bits of plastic stuck behind your cassette doing more harm than good.

What I really want is a metal spoke protector. That won't decay, that'll provide a sturdier barrier against overshifting, and which might even look nice. Unfortunately - and I can only assume the scurrilous roadie propaganda is partly to blame for this - they're basically unobtainable. They used to be fairly commonplace in the past, when they would screw onto threaded hubs behind the freewheel. But there's essentially nothing out there designed for freehubs.

After considering various hare-brained schemes, including metal plating a plastic disc (this is hard) I eventually discovered that there was one area of cycling where this kind of adornment isn't just tolerated, it's positively encouraged. And that's the world of Lowrider Bikes.

It set me back about £20, but I got the perfect disc. The only downside was it was just a little too tight to fit over splines on the hub. So I'd need to modify it with some grinding...

The original lowrider stainless still disc. Ain't it a beauty!

Grinding off the inner rim with my trusty Dremel. This is steel so lots of sparks. My word this made a racket.

Finished the job. It's a bit rough in places, but that doesn't matter as this part of the disc will be hidden behind the cassette.

Now it slides over the splines to the base of the freehub - perfect! The idea is the disc will rotate with the wheel, while when freewheeling the cassette will stay static. This means there needs to be a decent clearance between them...

Now we need to fasten the disc to the spokes so it doesn't move around too much (this wouldn't be a big deal, but might make an annoying noise). For this I'm using steel zip ties, just to blend in.

The cassette can now be attached and screwed down tightly. There's plenty of space behind for the disc to rotate, but it will now easily fend the chain away from the spokes and the gap behind the cassette in the event of an overshift.

Spinning up the back wheel, freewheels perfectly without any interaction between the disc and the cassette held static by the chain

Taking it out for a ride. It looks dope!

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