Wheelworks.co.nz, Handbuilt wheels by Tristan Thomas

I love all-silver builds…modern high-performance components produce great performing wheels yet they have a classic appearance suitable for modern or classic bikes. We topped them off with white decals.

Wes wanted a pair of daily-use wheels which are fast enough for Sunday group rides and durable enough for mid-week riding and commuting.

This pair uses the White Industries H2 front hub and H3 rear hub. The front wheel is laced with 24 DT Swiss Revolution spokes and the rear with 28 spokes – DT Swiss Competition on the driveside and the lighter Revolution on the non-driveside.

1511 grams is lighter than a pair of Ksyrium SL’s (or similar) yet these wheels will have excellent durability and ride quality.

I built the wheels for this bike and once all the other parts arrived it was time to do the full build.

Frame; Yeti AS-R, medium

Fork; Rockshox Revelation Race 140mm

Wheels; Stan’s Crest laced to Stan’s hubs

Tyres; Schwalbe Fat Albert

Groupset: Shimano SLX

PRO bar, stem and seatpost (Deda Newton stem in the photos)

WTB saddle (old Specialized in the photos)

Gary’s done a few rides on the new bike and did his first skills course at Makura Peak over the weekend. He loves it.

I’ve been a fan of mountain bike tubeless systems since day 1 and I’ve run tubeless on every bike I could including my 20″ bmx. This rim is Stan’s first road-specific rim, the Alpha340, which I wrote about last month.

I laced these super light rims up to a pair of DT Swiss 240s hubs in custom white using DT Swiss Aerolite and Competition spokes. I used the bladed Aerolite spokes on the front wheel and non-driveside of the rear wheel for light weight and good aerodynamics. On the driveside of the rear wheel I used the heavier Competition spokes to add some lateral stiffness to the rear wheel.

Even with a sensible 24h front / 28h rear and using brass nipples on the rear driveside this wheelset tipped the scales at only 1347 grams.

I’ve been riding these wheels for the past few weeks with a pair of normal (non-tubeless) GP4000s’ and inner tubes to see what they ride like, now that I’m used to them I’ll mount the 25c Hutchinson Intensive RoadTubeless tyres and see what the tubeless combo is like.

These are demo wheels so if you’re interested in trying road tubeless for yourself drop me a line.

These wheels will undergo a lot of kms as Darren prepares for IronMan.

The front hub is a Novatec 20 hole and the rear the excellent DT Swiss 240s.  Spokes are DT Swiss Competition.  The Competition is a double-butted round-section spoke with a great balance of weight and stiffness.  It make and makes a great spoke for the very stiff Kinlin XR-270 rim.

Total wheelset weight is 1552 grams – very light for such a durable wheelset.

Gerard found this 16 spoke front wheel too flexible so he approached me about what could be done to increase the lateral stiffness.

For budgetary reasons a new hub wasn’t feasable but I managed to increase the lateral stiffness by just shy of 20% by using a stiffer spoke (DT Swiss Champion rather than Competition) and moving the spoke’s elbows to the outside of the hub flange.

The result is a minimal (21 gram) gain in weight and a good improvement in stiffness.

Andrew has two Thorn touring bikes with Rohloff hubs…the old rims were getting a bit thin at the brake track so it was time for a replacement.

The amazing thing about the Rohloff hub is how well they last.  These two look like they’ve done a lot of miles yet the axles spin freely and they still change gear well.

I rebuilt the two hubs with Sun Rhyno Lite eyeletted rims and I used DT Swiss Competition spokes and brass nipples.

I’ve been running RoadTubeless on my commuter bike for over 18 months now with great results.  When I heard about the new Alpha 340 road rim from Stan’s I pulled a favour from local importer CycleTech to get a pair of early production rims.

The Alpha 340 uses the same Bead Socket Technology (“BSD”) as Stan’s mountain bike rims and is designed to be used with RoadTubeless tyres, but like the mtb version any normal clincher tire and inner tube will work.  RoadTubeless tyres are similar to UST montain bike tires:  they’re airtight and have a very strong bead which resists blowing off the rim.  To run tubeless on a road bike you must use a RoadTubeless tire – unlike on the mountain bike where most standard tires will hold air with some sealant – because of the much higher pressures involved.

The two Alpha 340 rims I received weigh 360g and 363g with 6 decals on each rim…a little more than the claimed 340 grams but still very light.

These rims will be built up to a pair of white DT Swiss 240s hubs as a demo pair for Wheelworks customers so if you’re interested in trying RoadTubeless drop me a line. I’ll update this page with a bit more info about wheel stiffness once the wheels are built but this will be a few days as I’ve got a queue of customer wheels to build first.

Rim width (at the top of the brake track): 20.35mm

Rim depth: 22.40mm

ERD: 593mm (claimed 591mm)