These look fantastic! I really liked my (aluminium) Duke rims, and those hubs look great!
I’m hoping my BTLOS rims go the distance. They’re crazy light!! You can really feel the weight of the Onyx rear hub, the front is not so crazy that it’s noticable.
I love the shot through the valve hole of the logo. I wish I’d taken the time to get that shot. It was very satisfying getting it all lined up “pro” .
I used the Ali Jackson guide this time and it was such a good video to follow. It has lots of lacing patterns too. Almost made me try do a mix of patterns just for the sake of it since he made it sound so easy.
lacing with straight pull is very ease, just put the spokes in and they all point in the right direction, you can just visually line up the vale hole and start connecting the spokes to the rim.
ow, and I forgot the weight: 1338 for the set
item
weight in grams
rear hub
215
front hub
103
spokes
305
nipples
60
rear rim
316
front rim
336
(yes, that’s 3 grams less, i don’t know, maybe something with the scale )
I’ll be building a new set of XC wheels. Next month I’ll probably order the rims - Velocity Blunt SS in silver, and once I receive those and do some measuring I’ll get the spokes… thinking Sapim Lasers. I really want gold nipples but I’m unsure if alloy is the way to go on my first build.
I’ve got all off season to get them done so no hurry on ordering or building.
Very nice! I was very close to going XTR for the near silent freehub. I ended up opting out due to the higher maintenance requirements, but they sure are lovely!
If you get the nipples with the spokes they should be Sapim double square, which are far better than standard alloy nipples for a few reasons. I’d recommend them. Never broke one even when ripping the nipple through the rim bed with a particularly violent impact!
That brings back some memories. I caught the tail end of that era though sadly I never went on a Jobst ride or met him. I did build a bunch of wheels using his book - standard 32 hole Mavic/Campagnolo wheels. Those wheels performed as well as any pro built wheel I ever had. I did the tensioning using his plucking method!
One of his many photos was used on Palo Alto Cycles catalog from back in the day.
I’ve been intimidated to lace a modern deep profile carbon rim but I hear it’s actually easier. It also hasn’t seemed worth it because you can usually buy the whole wheel cheaper than parts.
2 of the 3 sets I’ve built in the last 10 years were deep carbons, but it was probably 15 years since the last ones I built (working at a bike shop in HS/college, built my first set at 14) so I can’t really say if they were easier but really they aren’t hard. The non deep ones were about 8 years ago so I don’t recall, flo 30 rims I wanted to build up custom for the lady.
As for a price, its been a few years, but pretty sure my 90mm (88??) build cost me more than the similar wheels I sold to build them. But I went with a DT front hub, cheapy rear since its under a cover, and sapim CX ray spokes. So I ended up with something better at least not just a waste of time.
I hadn’t built anything in a while but back in 2016 I bought the rims below, then got laid off, then moved, then started a business so they have been sitting. We were moving again and I got the hubs last year as a gift so it was time to build these up so I wasn’t moving parts, again. They are a 50?60?mm. DT swiss spokes and nipples this time, bartered LBS to fix AC on one of his cars. So I’m actually only in these for the cost of the wheels.
The one thing I can think of that you need to be mindful of with the deep stuff is that they tension up fast since the spokes are short, at least that is what it seems like to me. I wasn’t quite paying attention to the actual numbers doing the rear wheel just that they were close and all of a sudden I’m 50% kgf over the max on the sticker on the rim and had to detension the whole wheel and true up again more carefully.
Where would one even buy deep carbon rims? I’ve searched and they are hard to find outside of Aliexpress. Bikehubstore has nothing much. Wheelbuilder.com has very expensive Zipp, Enve, and Hed rims.
I’ve had great luck with Farsports wheels but it just doesn’t seem worth it to order just rims from China when I could get a whole wheelset for not much more money.
The only use case for my old wheelbuilding skills I can see if a repair/replacement on an existing wheelset.
I’m actually in need of a moderately/budget priced disc wheelset and I want a wider rim. It’s not easy to find. I’m thinking of the Cannondale Hollowgram 45s. They are $1000 and I can get them for $900 on sale. And include a 2 year crash warranty and a lifetime warranty. Hard to beat.
The rims above are from ebay ( I think… its been a while)
The value thing is tough. I’m the kind of guy who has literally installed superchargers on R8s and then told someone else to go test drive it because my enjoyment comes from the building part not the driving (I’d also driven a bunch). I make my own pizza which saves virtually no money and wastes so much time. I have built car parts that cost more in materials than I could have just bought ready to bolt on. I don’t think I really saved much at all on any wheels I built. I do all these things because I like the process. I get calls at my shop all the time about building custom exhausts, nearly all of them I point them in the direction of something we can buy to bolt on for less money. I’ll always direct a customer towards what makes the best financial sense for them unless they just want to know it was custom (they always chose to save money). But I will almost always chose custom/hand built myself even if it is a worse value.
Neither is right or wrong we all value things differently.
Also check out Park Tool for their wheel tensioning website, and get an idea what your new wheel looks like for the tension entered. (The Park Tool TM-1 is a good tool. It’s one that I use): Wheel Tension App: Wheel Tension App | Park Tool
I do use DT Swiss as much as I can, just saying… I’ve never been able to reuse spokes, so far. It’s hard to find the exact size of a previous hub, and matching the offsets and such. So much can be just enough different that you can’t reuse the old ones. Plus you have to realize that they were already stressed for the wheel they were installed in, and reusing them could result in premature failure aas you mix innies and outies on the new build. I’ve also seen some really stressed j-bends coming off of existing wheels that were actually kind of scary looking. Use new spokes, use new nipples, use spoke prep, or not.
I built up 4 sets of wheels during the pandemic. It was a distraction from what was going on (or not). Oh, Do Not Use Straight Pull Spokes. I did, and regret it. You need special tools for them and it’s not easy to get them done without them, and if you ever have to true them, you WILL need the tool. (Roval has an excellent tool, and of course Park Tool does too. Odd thing is I started with the Park Tool and had to switch to the Roval as I finished tensioning the spokes for a gravel bike build. Straight pulls rotate as you torque them where j-bend spokes don’t (as much).
Tangent: I have somewhere close to 10 different spoke wrenches, and 2 truing stands, and three spoke holders. And I still don’t do it for other people yet. But I LOVE building wheels, and getting it ‘just right’.
The bike shop I worked at decided that they would encourage employees who wanted to learn would help them: Free spokes! Free nipples! I built two wheelsets before I quit. They had a good idea, but I think too many took them up on it as the stock of spokes took a hit. (Too much typing, but building wheels is so much fun!) Anyway, hope this helps people curious about it.
IMO using straight pull spokes is not as hard as described. You just need a simple, cheap tool to hold the spoke when building.
The problem with the j-bend spokes is that although they do not rotate, they twist, which may cause issues later. There are tools for preventing the spoke twist, but they are much more expensive than the simple flat spoke holder.
But not all straight pull spokes are also bladed (flat). Sure, j-bend spokes do twist a bit, and there are ways to deal with it, but, during building and truing, straight pull spokes literally twisting in the hub eyelets is more of a problem than with j-bend. Some straight spokes will not twist and others will so someone trying to true their own wheel with straight spokes without a spoke holder is asking to make a bad problem potentially much worse. People that already have bladed/flat spokes definitely need a flat spoke holder to prevent them twisting during truing attempts. (A bladed holder came with a wheelset I bought which was a nice touch) There are quite a lot of other holders out there too…
So for people looking into building their own wheels, you need spoke wrenche(s), nipple driver(s), a dish tool, tension meter, and a truing stand (and potentially other special tools like spoke holders). There are many options for those tools. Everyone will eventually find their favorites. Then there is an argument on whether to use anything on the threads of the spokes. Dry, Teflon liquid/powder, linseed oil, Loctite, etc. That in itself is another ‘holy war’ in biking. Some swear by motor oil, which, well, if it works…
But if you do try it, take your time. Watch spoke placement, and have a wheel to use as an example while you are doing your first few, and have fun. It was such a wild feeling to be riding my bike on wheels I built. I DID THIS!!
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I have only built a few wheel sets and all of them have been for road bikes, with straight pull bladed spokes. So my brain automatically associated the two things.
I’d like to mention that you actually don’t need those tools. There are lots of creative work arounds out there. I encourage anyone to not be scared off by lacking those tools (especially the high end truing stands!).
I built my first ever wheelset with just a spoke wrench. Instead of a nipple driver I threaded the opposite side of the nipple onto a spare spoke, and used that to hold it in place. Instead of a truing stand I just used two zip ties on the frame of my bike. Can also use the frame for dishing. I had an old wheel on hand that I used for reference for tension, just got my new wheels where they felt about the same tension. Then I used tri-flow for lubing the threads, which might make some wheel builders lose their mind!
You are right about taking your time, that is rule #1. My first wheel I had to re-lace four times because I kept getting it wrong. Kind of annoying but actually a great learning experience.
True! I had my dad (retired, looking for a project) build me a truing stand out of wood from the plans in one of the foundational wheel building books (can’t remember the name right now). Works great, cost me nothing, and him just some wood and a little time!
looks over shoulder at mac box full of snap-on tools, does not compute.
In all seriousness, you are absolutely right though. The first set of wheels I built as a kid was as you described, using a frame as a stand, only actual tool we had was a spoke wrench and pretty sure my dad had it from a set of wheels he built 20 years prior, and one of us still has now 40+ years since he bought it. When I started building wheels at the bike shop in HS we didn’t have a tensioner meter even, it was all by feel. Now for no other reason than a tool obsession I have a bunch of processional wheel building tools.
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