Wheelworks.co.nz, Handbuilt wheels by Tristan Thomas

I’ve widened the website slightly -  4 years ago 900px was pretty wide, these days with ultra-widescreen monitors it’s not.  After playing around with various widths I’ve increased the width to 1000px – not a huge increase but it allows the photo thumbnails in an article to be 4-wide rather than 3.

There is also a new header image to accommodate the new width.

There is a new workshop page showing off the awesome new workshop space in Lyall Bay.  If you haven’t been out to have a look stop by and check it out.

This is a light pair of 26″ singlespeed wheels. The Hope Pro2 hubs are one of the best singlespeed hubs out there: 48 engagement points, reasonable weight, a good selection of colours, and exceptional durability.

I laced these hubs to the new Stan’s Crest rims. This is a replacement for the 355 with the newer Bead Socket Technology making tubeless tyres harder to burp.  These are awesome rims with great durability and very light weight.

The rear wheel uses light weight DT Swiss Revolution spokes on both sides – the wide, parallel flanges build into a very stiff rear wheel even with these light spokes. The front wheel uses the same Revolutions on the right side but stiffer Competitions on the disc side. All spoke nipples are aluminium.

Weight is a very respectable 1594 grams.

The Japanese-made Morizumi spoke cutting and threading machine is a great tool and one that I couldn’t live without.

I have found that when taking small (less than 1/2mm) cuts that the spoke ends can jam the shear and stop the spring from returning correctly. Luckily the Morizumi is such a well thought-out design that the shear is easy to dismantle and clean.

In the photos you can see the silver steel shear and the small spoke ends which have caused it to jam.

It’s always nice to see the bikes which my wheels end up on. This is Serge’s 7.08kg Lynksey with a DuraAce groupset, Chris King headset, bottom bracket and hubs, and Thomson seatpost and stem.  I built the wheels back in May and they were still running to less than one-tenth of a millimetre of trueness.

Serge stayed the night in Wellington and we did a nice hilly ride on Saturday and after puncturing and missing the bunch ended up doing a nice easy 90km on Sunday.

For the weight-weenies and double chainring fans who follow the blog….

XTR M980 low-clamp double-chainring front derailleur and M981 high mount triple ring derailleur. Not as light as XX but at least they’ll fit on the bike without the shocks air-can hitting the clamp at 3/4 travel…

Mat approached me a few months ago – he is off to race the World Cup in Mont Saint Anne, Canada and he needed a fast and light pair of XC wheels.

Mat originally wanted to use a pair of carbon rims but I explained that I didn’t think the cost / benefit was right and that the much cheaper, just as light Stan’s Race rims would be a great option.

I laced the sub-300 gram Race rims to Tune King and Kong hubs. These are one of the lighter mountain bike hubsets out there and with large bearings and aluminium axles they offer good durability and performance.

I used DT Swiss Aerolite bladed spokes to keep weight and aerodynamic drag down. The front wheel and non-driveside rear are laced 3-cross, and the driveside rear is laced 2x to increase the non-driveside spoke tension. This is important on the very light Race rims.

Gold nipples and custom gold decals – Mat’s aiming for gold at the World Cup.

The wheels came in at a stunning 1244 grams for the pair and they look a million-bucks.

Peter brought this wheel to me with a broken spoke but after a quick look it was clear that the wheel needed to be rebuilt. The build quality was very poor and had caused one of the spokes to break just below the spoke nipple. Peter is off to the Long Distance World Champs in a week’s time and didn’t want to take any risks.

I rebuilt the wheel with Sapim CX-Ray spokes and Zipp internal nipples. The original spokes were DT Swiss Aerolites and I’m not sure what the original nipples were but they were not designed for this rim.

The 240s hub is in great shape.

The wheel is now true and should last many race kms.

This front wheel is for Paula Tesoriero’s new custom-made Cyfac timetrail bike with a front disc brake.

The Zipp 404 tubular rim doesn’t need much introduction: it’s the benchmark for mid-depth carbon rims and it’s aerodynamics make it perfect for this task.

24 hole disc hubs are hard to find but we tracked down a couple of XTR 965 hubs. This is a great hub for a timetrail bike as it’s light and has adjustable cup-and-cone bearings. To add every possible advantage I replaced the steel bearings with ceramic balls. The Center Lock splined rotor interface, when combined with the DT Swiss 6-bolt adapters, provides a light and aerodynamic way of mounting the brake rotor, and I’ve got some light weight KCNC rotors on order to save a few grams.

Spokes are Sapim CX-Ray which are aerodynamic and will match the 808 rear wheel Paula will use.

After racing the Kapiti winter series last weekend I met Adrian who let me have a quick spin on his custom Zinn with 210mm cranks. With an 825mm seat height it’s not often I get on a bike which is too big for me!

The car ride home from the race was spent with discussing pros and cons with tech-heads Cameron and Stu with the general consensus that the idea makes sense in theory. But we don’t ride our bikes in theory. I’ve always ridden 175mm cranks but often wondered what longer cranks would be like and while having a natter to DB he mentioned a pair of Record 180mm cranks collecting were dust on his workbench and offered to lend them to me.

These cranks are from the early 2000′s. Campagnolo had produced their first carbon crank a few years earlier and although they’re one of the nicest looking cranks ever made they had some issues with the pedal area falling out. The next generation of carbon cranks (what I was using) were much more reliable but only offered up to 175mm and as a result Belgian hardmen like Boonen refused to use the newer carbon cranks and instead opted for aluminium cranks similar to what arrived in DB’s courier bag.

The 5mm longer cranks mean that I can lower my seat 5mm and move it forward 5mm which should get my weight towards the center of the bike more. The weight gain of aluminium cranks from carbon was 105 grams.

I’m looking forward to riding these cranks over the weekend and seeing if they have any effect on my riding. I need all the help I can get :-)