Custom wheel building
- Thread starter tednugent
- Start date
yep no site too busy building hubs, it's a ma and pop shop. You have to call and when you do you will speak to the wife. I kinda like it that way personally feels more my age 😉...
MikeP
Well-Known Member
that's cool, gonna get some prices from my old shop over the weekend. I think I'm stealth with black rims, hubs, spokes, and nips.
If it's the same John, he's at Morristown. Talked to him the other day, cool dude.
Just out of curiosity, why not on the flat spokes? my Crosstrails came that way. Thx.
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If you want bladed spokes on a MTB you will want to use Sapims. They will run you $55-70 for bag of 20. You said you have a budget -- any advantage from the cx-rays will be negligible compared to how much more you have to spend. There are other reasons too that I wouldnt, Im sure the guy building your wheels will have some suggestions/recommendations on spokes tho.
Dictatorsaurus
Active Member
Check out the Pacenti TL28 rims. As wide as Flows and lighter than the Arch Ex. 29er rim weighs 435g. They setup tubeless with Stans tape.
Getting a wheelset built with Hadley hubs and Pacenti rims.
Getting a wheelset built with Hadley hubs and Pacenti rims.
john, the same cycleworks john, is at Marty's in Mo-Town. top notch wheel builder. i'm glad he landed somewhere. his wheel building skillz are supreme.
guess I'm buying everything at Randolph (over the next few months) and taking it to morristown
just tell rob you want john in mo-town to build the wheels. i doubt he'd have an issue with it.
it's all within the Marty's umbrella.... so it's all good
when the mo-town store did the remodel, randolph & hackettstown people chipped in...
I remember John wasn't depressed about cycleworks closing.... more like a huge load off of his shoulders
Yeah, that's the same impression I got talking to him.
BubbRubb
Member
I'll chime in since I build a lot of wheels.
Anyone can build wheels once they memorize the lacing pattern. It took me What determines a good wheel is the attention to detail. before you commit to a builder ask a few simple questions, and if they can't answer them with confidence you know he/she is just an "Average" builder. Just like you obsess over the details of who builds a better hub, you need to have the same fine grain filter for the guys building your hoops.
Don't buy a wheel if the guy is using blue threadlocker on the spoke threads. That's just hackery. I'm just saying, I've seen it done a lot and it is embarrassing. I use Wheelsmith Spoke Prep. Expensive stuff compared to linseed oil (which works well too), but the blue/pink colors really help make sense of a bundle of spokes if you're building a lot of wheels like we do.
http://www.wheelsmith.com/ourtools.html
Make sure they have a dishing gauge, and a Park Tool 1554-1 centering gauge. Both of these relate to the dish of the wheel, but the latter makes sure that the builder's stand is perfectly true before the build even starts. It is a solid block of steel that needs to be put into the stand before EVERY wheel build to make sure the stand isn't drifting out of true.
I like to use Morningstar's feeler gauges: http://morningstartools.com/rims_center.html Accurate to .001", you can build a seriously perfect wheel with these.
Another must-have is a tensiometer. Park makes a really cheap and effective one, but I upgraded 2 years ago to the uber-expensive DT Swiss version: http://www.dtswiss.com/Products/Proline/DT-tensio-analog.aspx I could write a book about this, but there are already many out there... the point I need to drive home is that tension is everything. End Of Discussion. You can build a perfectly true, perfectly round wheel, and then have it fall apart on you because the tension was not part of the builder's focus. since you're balancing a wheel with 32 (or less) spokes, 1 spoke can be way over tension and over-compensate for another spoke on the same side that is way way under tension. The wheel will be true, but the over tensioned spoke will fatigue faster, and the under tensioned spoke will loosen quickly. Neither is good.
My anecdote in regards to this was I had a good friend build me my first set of handmade wheels many years ago. He had built a lot of wheels for people in the past. Why should I question the quality of these perfectly round and true wheels? After an initial break in period of 3 weeks, he trued them again and sent me off to the 24 hrs of Allamuchy, where i was to do my first solo. around midnight, slogging up a muddy hill I said "Before I quit, check the brakes, they aren't dragging... its you. But check any way." I checked and my wheels were literally falling apart.
Blue threadlocker. That stuff was never engineered to hold threads that get adjusted frequently. Also, he never checked tension.
Long-winded, but I'm pretty passionate about this stuff.
Anyone can build wheels once they memorize the lacing pattern. It took me What determines a good wheel is the attention to detail. before you commit to a builder ask a few simple questions, and if they can't answer them with confidence you know he/she is just an "Average" builder. Just like you obsess over the details of who builds a better hub, you need to have the same fine grain filter for the guys building your hoops.
Don't buy a wheel if the guy is using blue threadlocker on the spoke threads. That's just hackery. I'm just saying, I've seen it done a lot and it is embarrassing. I use Wheelsmith Spoke Prep. Expensive stuff compared to linseed oil (which works well too), but the blue/pink colors really help make sense of a bundle of spokes if you're building a lot of wheels like we do.
http://www.wheelsmith.com/ourtools.html
Make sure they have a dishing gauge, and a Park Tool 1554-1 centering gauge. Both of these relate to the dish of the wheel, but the latter makes sure that the builder's stand is perfectly true before the build even starts. It is a solid block of steel that needs to be put into the stand before EVERY wheel build to make sure the stand isn't drifting out of true.
I like to use Morningstar's feeler gauges: http://morningstartools.com/rims_center.html Accurate to .001", you can build a seriously perfect wheel with these.
Another must-have is a tensiometer. Park makes a really cheap and effective one, but I upgraded 2 years ago to the uber-expensive DT Swiss version: http://www.dtswiss.com/Products/Proline/DT-tensio-analog.aspx I could write a book about this, but there are already many out there... the point I need to drive home is that tension is everything. End Of Discussion. You can build a perfectly true, perfectly round wheel, and then have it fall apart on you because the tension was not part of the builder's focus. since you're balancing a wheel with 32 (or less) spokes, 1 spoke can be way over tension and over-compensate for another spoke on the same side that is way way under tension. The wheel will be true, but the over tensioned spoke will fatigue faster, and the under tensioned spoke will loosen quickly. Neither is good.
My anecdote in regards to this was I had a good friend build me my first set of handmade wheels many years ago. He had built a lot of wheels for people in the past. Why should I question the quality of these perfectly round and true wheels? After an initial break in period of 3 weeks, he trued them again and sent me off to the 24 hrs of Allamuchy, where i was to do my first solo. around midnight, slogging up a muddy hill I said "Before I quit, check the brakes, they aren't dragging... its you. But check any way." I checked and my wheels were literally falling apart.
Blue threadlocker. That stuff was never engineered to hold threads that get adjusted frequently. Also, he never checked tension.
Long-winded, but I'm pretty passionate about this stuff.
MikeP
Well-Known Member
Put in my order today: Hope Pro IIs, Stan Arch rims, DT Swiss spokes. Going black on black on black. DT Swiss hubs look amazing but couldn't get a deal on them or Hadleys. I still think this will be a major upgrade over my stock 525/Bonty set up. Plus if anybody is looking for a good set up of cheap wheels I know where you can get a set😉
Was talking to doofus, well more like email through work....
He recommends to me:
http://www.speeddream.com/
And... he has sold his soul 😀
He recommends to me:
http://www.speeddream.com/
And... he has sold his soul 😀
You are now a much better person for this, this not an up grade but more of I AM THE SHIT BITCHES!
MikeP
Well-Known Member
better person, not sure...bombproof wheels, hell yeah. The funny thing is selling my current 29er wheelset(please someone buy, cheap plug) barely gets me a CK front hub.
Robson
Well-Known Member
My 2 cents on wheels and hubs...
I'm running Stan's Flows with Stan's hubs for two seasons. Never had any issues. Easy to service and very reliable. I like them o much that I'm buying another wheel-set for my new bike.
Also I like the fact that for price of one expensive hub I have one light reliable wheel-set.
I'm running Stan's Flows with Stan's hubs for two seasons. Never had any issues. Easy to service and very reliable. I like them o much that I'm buying another wheel-set for my new bike.
Also I like the fact that for price of one expensive hub I have one light reliable wheel-set.