Wheelworks.co.nz, Handbuilt wheels by Tristan Thomas

I’ll be out of the workshop until March 31st.

Erin and I are flying into Melbourne, driving along the coast to Adelaide, and then jetting back to Melbourne in time for the Formula 1.

I’ll be visiting the guys at Baum Cycles and I hope to catch up with Ewen Gellie as well as make my own wine blend at Penfolds in the Barossa Valley.  I bribed DB to let me use his Ritchey BreakAway so I’ll have a bike with me and I hope to get in a few kms.

I will have phone and email while I’m away but I might be slower to respond than usual as I’m not sure each place we’re staying has wifi.

Cheers,

Tristan

The Velocity A23 rims are a 23mm wide clincher rim designed to open up the tyre and improve handling and comfort by increasing air volume in the tire, as well as improve aerodynamics.  Most clincher rims are 19 – 20mm which is narrower than a standard 23mm tyre.

Velocity arn’t the only people trying this wide rim concept:  HED have the Ardennes, C-4 have the VT-22 and the new Zipp 303 clincher and tubular are 23mm wide.  Stan’s also have a wide, tubeless-ready road and cyclocross rim in the works.

There has been quite a bit of online debate about whether a wide rim will do what is claimed so I wanted to build a pair for myself and for customers to try.

The Velocity rims are both below 430g which is light for such a wide rim.

I used red DT Swiss 240s hubs and laced the front wheel 24×2 using DT Swiss Revolution spokes and alloy nipples.  The rear wheel uses DT Swiss competition spokes on the driveside and Revolutions on the non-driveside.  As I was unsure about how stiff the rims would be considering their light weight so I opted for the stiffer Competition spokes on the driveside but I was impressed with the stiffness of the rims so in future I know what type of spoke will suit different riders.

The wheels built up really well and at 1467 grams are very light.  I’ve managed a few hundred km on them and they feel very nice on the road.  Road ‘feel’ is very good but the thing that impressed me the most was how well the wheels turn-in to a corner.  Gary had a quick ride and was impressed and the wheels are off to Hamish for a few weeks while I’m away.

These wheels are once again proof that a good quality hub, when looked after, will last a long, long time.  Mark asked me to rebuild his Shimano hubs from his touring bike and we selected the Salsa Delgado as the ideal rim for 35mm tyres and bumpy road.

The spokes are double-butted DT Swiss Competition and are laced with brass nipples.

All-in-all these are a classic pair of wheels which will last another couple of hundred thousand km.

The Alpine is the latest rim from Stan’s and is designed to replace their Olympic with the newer Bead Socket Technology they’ve developed for the Crest and Alpine.  At a 327g this is a very light rim.

I laced it to Kah’s Lefty front hub using DT Swiss Revolution spokes and black alloy nipples.  Total wheelset weight was 593 grams.

I applied both pink and white decals.  Secretly I think Kah wanted pink but was too scared to ask – this way he can peel off the colour he doesn’t want :-)

The wheel was delivered with the 21mm Stan’s yellow tape and a tubeless valve ready for use.

This is the second pair of wheels I’ve built for Johann, the first was a set of alloy clinchers back in 2008.  At the time Johann wanted to use the Alchemy ORC rear hub which was being prototyped at the time, but we expected a bit of a delay getting one so we opted for a Tune hub.  Johann really wanted that ORC though so he waited patiently to build it into a pair of Edge 45mm tubular wheels.

18 months later the ORC went into limited production and I managed to get one.

What is so special about this hub?  Alchemy have widened the flanges as much as possible to build the stiffest possible wheel.  The driveside flange is as far from the center-line of the hub as physically possible (that pesky cassette gets in the way) and the non-driveside flange is placed far enough to produce great lateral stiffness.  The axle and freehub body are both aluminum and the hub uses 5 bearings with one uniquely placed between the freehub body and hub shell.  At 221g this is a similar weigh to the DT Swiss 240s, a little heavier than the 183g Tune Mag180, and lighter than the 252g White Ind H3.

The front hub is the 66 gram Alchemy ELF which I really like using.  Again the design uses wide flanges to build into stiff wheels and it’s 30g lighter than a DT Swiss 240s or White Ind H2 front hub.

The rims are 300 gram Edge 45mm deep carbon tubulars.  These are amazing rims and build into fantastic wheels for about the same money as a Zipp yet are lighter and more durable.

Spokes are bladed DT Swiss Aerolites and nipples are Pillar hidden / internal.

The hub and rim decals are custom-made in a battleship gray to match the raw titanium finish of Johann’s bike.

Total wheelset weight is 1104 grams which is lighter than the new Zipp 202 wheelset yet a similar depth to the 200 gram heavier Zipp 404.

I glued a pair of Veloflex tubulars so these wheels will be ready for use when they arrive.

Janine rode in the Womans Tour of Wellington for the first time this year and she wanted a lighter pair of wheels to handle the hilly course.  I had some Alex R400 rims which I’d been keeping for a special build – they weighted 381g and 383g which is amazingly light for such a great rim.

We chose the White Industries H3 hubs.  These are not the lightest hub in the world but their flange geometry is great and they build into very stiff wheels.  With a titanium freehub body and one more bearing than most hubs the durability is great.  The front is 95g and the rear 252g so they’re still very light.

I laced them using bladed DT Swiss Aerolite spokes which keep the weight and aerodynamic drag down.

Janine rode really well in the Tour and was photographed by cyclingnews.com in the break on day 1.  Unfortunately a good GC placing escaped her after being taken down in a couple of crashes – she escaped with minor roadrash but the rear wheel had 4 spokes cleanly broken through the middle by the pedal or quickrelease of another rider.  It’s nothing I can’t fix – both the rider and wheels will be back for next years Tour.

Andrew made the move to training with power.  He already has a Garmin 705 which interfaces perfectly with the PowerTap wireless hubs so an SL+ hub was the logical choice.

We matched the 28h rear hub to a DT Swiss 240s front hub in 24h.

All spokes are DT Swiss Competition and the spoke nipples are black brass.  Both rims are Kinlin XR-270.  We could have chosen lighter components however this wheelset was designed to last the test of time.

The result is a super durable 1790g wheelset which records power output – perfect for training and club racing (although Andrew has a few other pairs of my wheels for racing)

Darren approached me after having some serious problems breaking spokes on the factory wheelset on his new bike.  As a bigfella the wheels were just not lasting and he’d broken 3 spokes since December.  His request was pretty simple: a bombproof pair of wheels which won’t break at spoke at 70kph like his last pair.

I used the super-stiff DT Swiss RR1.2 rims.  These 30mm deep rims are not especially light but are very stiff and will have great durability and are perfect for this use.

I matched the rims to DuraAce 7900 hubs.  The titanium freehub body won’t marr from the cogs like a lighter aluminium freehub body would, and these hubs are top quality.

Spokes are DT Swiss Competition and the nipples are brass.  The front is laced 28×2, the rear is 32×3 – clean, simple and super durable.

Funnily enough at 1979 grams these wheels are lighter than the problematic wheels being replaced.

This is a pair of wheels for aggressive XC and adventure racing.  The tubeless XM819 rims are nearly bombproof and are easy to mount tyres to, and the Stan’s ZTR hubs keen the weight down.  The Stan’s hubs have proven to have excellent durability and are very good value.  The front can be upgraded to QR15mm should Dave want to upgrade his suspension fork later.

Spokes are black DT Swiss Competition double-butted.  The front nipples are 16mm aluminum and the rear uses 16mm brass.

All-up this is a very respectable weight for a wheelset with this durability.

This pair of DT Swiss 240s hubs is for an upcoming build with the new Velocity A23 rims.  I think the red is fantastic and will look great built into a wheelset.

I was torn between while or black decals but I thought with the black rims and spokes that the black decals would tie it together better.