Road disc trend

June 9, 2014

We’re seeing more and more road disc bikes on the market. The scene is changing quickly but not all hub manufacturers are on trend. DT Swiss makes excellent hubs that are easily convertible between axle standards and freehub specifications. You can take a DT Swiss mountain hub and swap in a Shimano/SRAM 11 speed freehub body with no fuss. Unfortunately because DT is late to the party, you can’t buy their hubs ready to ride. You have to buy the freehub body separately and do the swap yourself, leaving you with a 10 speed freehub body in hand. Not ideal.

These are photos of a recent wheelset — DT Swiss 350 hubs laced to H Plus Son Achetype rims with DT Swiss Competition double-butted spokes. Freehub swapped to support Shimano 11.

Lightweight mountain

May 31, 2014

These are lightweight wheels designed to rejuvenate a bike that gets a lot of use but has considerable life left. If you’re still using OEM wheels, you’ll be surprised how new hoops transform your ride. Components were chosen for weight and these wheels hit 1500 grams with valves and tape. The front hub is an uncommon 25mm thru axle model, which matches the owner’s fork.

Wheels for Clyde

May 19, 2014

The wheelset pictured below is particularly strong to meet the needs of a particular rider. It uses Velocity Cliffhanger rims and White Industries MI6 hubs. The 26″ wheel size and wider 135mm rear spacing offer relevant benefits.

Spokes are a key consideration with every build. In this case I’ve chosen 40 spokes per wheel and I’m using single-butted Sapim Strong, which are 2.3mm at the elbow where most breakage occurs. The strength of a spoke is proportional to its cross-sectional area so a 2.3mm section is stronger than you might imagine. Put in other terms, 40 spokes with a 2.3mm diameter offer more strength than 52 spokes with a plain 2.0mm end. Sapim Strong are 32% stronger says (π×(2.3÷2)²) ÷ (π×(2.0÷2)²).

It’s not common practice but I chose nipple washers for this build, which allow me to take tension to the limit of the rim with greater safety. Sapim Polyax washers also allow nipples to re-orient slightly for a better spoke path — I like them when building with single-butted spokes.

Raceworthy DH wheels

May 2, 2014

I’ve built quite a few Hope wheelsets lately. Here’s another set with my favorite brand of mountain rims — Stan’s. Shipped with Stan’s tape and valve stems installed.

Twenty-niner racing

April 20, 2014

These are sweet 29er race wheels but great fun in general, especially on the climbs. The Hope hubs were the riders’s own and I supplied Stan’s Crest rims and Sapim Laser spokes. With aluminum nipples they add up to 1615g, that is 732g front and 883g rear (DT Swiss 240S hubs would push it under 1475g total). Because of the rim weight and resultant low tension ceiling, build quality is extra important on a wheelset like this. These wheels were built with tension balanced to ±7% or better. In getting there both wheels were stress relieved multiple times, which causes tension to relax so I can bring it up as much as possible. Lateral alignment is nearly perfect with a 0.1mm rise at the decals being the limiting factor.

More Chinese carbon

April 11, 2014

I’ve built this make of rim before. I’m really happy with the quality. The nipple seats are reassuringly thick and the rims were round out of the box. The manufacturer makes carbon rims for a major league brand so production is mature. This particular model is 45mm deep with a hybrid toroidal shape, virtually identical to the Zipp 303. They lack the dimples found on Zipp Firecrests but sell for a fraction of the price.

Lots of Velocity

April 1, 2014

The first wheelset is destined for a vintage mountain bike restoration project. Velocity Aeroheat rims offer a good strength-to-weight ratio and Shimano Ultegra hubs help manage the budget. It’s not easy finding sweet 26″ wheels for rim brakes and a 130mm rear end.

The next set is loaded touring wheels designed for journeys without limitation. They are based on White Industries MI5 hubs equipped with a titanium freehub body, Velocity Dyad rims and butted spokes. With 40 spokes each, these wheels are capable of carrying the kitchen sink.

Upgrade from OEM

March 15, 2014

Identical to a previous wheelset, these have more to offer than most OEM wheels. Their stiffness is excellent, the star-ratchet hubs are high quality at an affordable price, and spokes are butted. Butted spokes decrease weight and increase fatigue life. This set is 28h with alloy nipples — a recipe for durability with a nod to weight. These are nice parts and I like to think they’re put together as well as a wheel can be, which is an important determiner of maintenance requirements and lifespan.

Radially lace my hubs

February 10, 2014

My rims are shot so I’m looking for new rims and spokes. My hubs are going strong so I’d like to re-use them. This time I’d like to lace the front wheel radially…

It’s a pleasure to ride nice hubs and, as this rider knows, they can survive many sets of rims. But only re-use your hubs with the same lacing pattern used before. This is for safety. Changing from a cross pattern to radial is the most dangerous case and a notorious cause of hub flange cracks.

Campagnolo rides again

February 1, 2014

Campagnolo has always made nice hubs so I enjoyed overhauling and lacing these to Archetype rims. The rear hub needed help with pitted cones and sticky pawls but now it’s as good as new. The loose ball bearings were replaced on both hubs, which should be done as part of periodic maintenance. In the same way that regularly replacing your chain extends the life of cassettes and chainrings, replacing loose ball bearings saves your cups and cones. If you have nice hubs, take care of them and they will last forever. Good hubs can last through several sets of rims.