Downside to SL Son hub/fork

[Michael Arciero]

Other than not being able to swap wheels on a bike without the SL connectors, is there a downside to doing this? I was thinking that repair of a damaged wire would be impossible.  

[Ahmet Cemiloglu]

Since SL connector-less design requires a custom built fork, you might as well add a metal jack/socket to the cable where it exits around the fork crown. That should help avoid a potential nightmare. Most of these forks go into builds where the cable is meticulously routed, but an unlucky accident would snap the cable along with damaging racks/fenders.

[William Lindsay]

It's definitely the most trick way to do dynamo lighting.  The downside in my mind is mainly cost.  Costly to set up at first, and costly to repair if something goes wrong, but hiding it all inside makes it almost impossible for anything to go wrong.  If it's an 'ultimate build' of some kind, connectorless is super trick. 

Bill Lindsay
El Cerrito, CA

[Brad]

On this I am a complete contrarian.  I have worked with enough wires in enough different contexts to be a fan of accessiblilty for repair.

[Eric Keller]

I have no experience with mine yet. The problems I see are that it
puts the wire in the wrong place for rack mounted lights if you use
the standard (drive side) dropouts. The dropouts are very expensive
and are ugly/cheaply made. It's too bad nobody else makes a dropout.

I don't think the repair issue is all that bad, people run wires
through forks all the time. I've always liked the idea of putting a
terminal at the fork crown.

[Hahn Rossman]

The dropouts have gotten less ugly and some of us have made ones that are less Teutonic looking. I have a flickr album from a couple of years ago here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/14513837@N00/albums/72157629601284625

I don't have any good pictures of the latest ones, but I'll get some up soon.

Once the fender stay and the QR are there it doesn't seem that different than a normal dropout.

Hahn Rossman

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[satanas]

I'm also curious about access for service. I have an old custom frame with ports for internal wiring to a BB mounted dynamo - yes I know this is extinct tech now - and had to pull the BB once or twice to sort wiring issues. External wiring is much easier to get at.

Having said that, the SON wires should be much less vulnerable to damage inside the fork blade, and not having to deal with the hub connectors (which are easily bent with the wheel off the bike) can only be a good thing.

Later,
Stephen

[Hahn Rossman]

I haven't damaged an internal wire yet. One of my customers bikes had the wire in the bottom bracket shell sheared off when a local shop reinstalled the bottom bracket. It was easily repaired. One of the advantages of running the wires internally is that they can be left longer than necessary and then if they get damaged at the ends ( or the middle in this case) there is enough slack to make a repair.

Hahn Rossman