Wheelworks.co.nz, Handbuilt wheels by Tristan Thomas

Matt wanted to upgrade his current Mavic wheels to something with more performance and lower weight. He originally wanted the ZTR Olympic rims but after a couple of emails we concluded that the Crest would be a better choice. The Crest is a very versatile rim and has great durability for such a light weight rim.

The Stan’s hubs with a QR15 front axle are nice and light and great value.

The spokes for this wheelset are black DT Swiss Competition. I used brass nipples on the rear driveside and aluminium everywhere else. Nipple colour alternates between red and black.

Tim at Freeload is off to Eurobike to peddle his wares – for those who haven’t seen the Freeload racks they’re an incredibly light weight, tubular aluminium rack with a unique and very ingenious clamping system.  As part of the Eurobike marketing material is this image, taken through Calebs lens I’m told, showing off the Freeload rack and by chance a pair of Wheelworks wheels at last year’s Brevet.

An amazing photo – best of luck at Eurobike, Tim!

Rounding off a fortnight of Rohloff is this hub laced to a 26″ Salsa Delgado rim. The Salsa rims are eyeletted and work really well with the wide flanges of the Rohloff hub.

The spokes on this wheel are double-butted Sapim Race’s and I use DT Swiss nipples because they allow a greater rotation angle inside the rim.

The XR-270 rims are now available in colours and I’m stocking red and silver.

This pair of wheels uses a custom blue pair of DT Swiss 240s hubs with two blue spokes at each valve. The wheels will be used for general training and a bit of club racing, but Ian has a similar pair with lighter hubs and fewer spokes which I built a few years ago for racing.

Front and rear non-driveside spokes are DT Swiss Revolutions, and stiffer Competitions are used on the rear driveside.  The driveside spoke nipples are brass, and I used aluminium for the non-drive and front.

At 1485 grams these wheels are still lighter than most out-of-the-box race wheels.

Spring seems to be a popular time of year to buy a Rohloff – a winter’s worth of drivetrain maintenance catches up and the simplicity of the gearbox suddenly makes sense. I’ve had four of these hubs to build in the last two weeks!

The Salsa rims work really well with the large flanges of the Rohloff hub. Some rims, like DT Swiss, don’t let the nipple exit at the right angle, and some spoke nipples, like Sapim, have a similar problem. I’ve got a lot of experience with these hubs so I know what combinations work well.

This wheel is being fitted to a Salsa La Cruz cyclocross / commuter / touring bike.

Cameron hit something at speed and damaged an XR-200 rear rim.

I treat damages and rebuilds as a great way to learn about the original build of the wheel, especially when it’s one of my own. It’s a great chance to see what condition the spoke nipples are in – especially whether they have seized to the spokes. With alloy nipples this is one of the primary concerns yet it can be quite easily prevented with correct building.

For a rebuilt I start by taping the new rim next to the old one. Since the spokes are happy in their position on the hub they can be re-used and don’t need to be disturbed too much.  Spokes are stretchy steel and it takes a lot to damage them.  I won’t re-use spoke nipples, especially aluminium ones so these will be replaced.

I then loosen each spoke nipple. I do this in small amounts by going around the wheel a few times and loosening only one turn at a time while the wheel is at tension. This prevents the tension from one spoke being transferred to others if it was completely loosened.

The new spoke nipples are prepared by shooting grease into each one of them. The blue tray is something I made as a prototype 4 years ago but it works so well I’ve never had to modify it.

Once the spokes are loose I go around the wheel and move each spoke from the old rim to the new one. The old nipple is discarded and the spoke thread is wiped clean. The new nipple has grease inside the thread and I roll the head in grease before it goes into the rim so that it rotates easily inside the rim.

Once each spoke is moved to the new rim the tape can be cut. From here it’s business as usual to finish building the wheel.

Some pics of the damaged rim. Cameron isn’t sure what he hit – they were riding single-file at pace and it wasn’t pointed out. The tube was pinch-flatted and the tyre slightly damaged so it was a reasonable hit!

And a few pics of the finished rebuild:

Chris King coffee arrived. It’s very dark and has a strong, nutty taste. It tastes a lot like American drip coffee – but in a good way!

I had these hubs custom-coloured to match the silver stripes and logos on Paul’s BMC PRo Machine. The front hub is an Alchemy ELF, the rear a DT Swiss 240s. Spokes are DT Swiss Aerolites with the two spokes next to each valve coloured the same as the hubs. Rims are Kinlin XR-270 with custom silver decals to match the hubs and spokes.

I’ve been experimenting a lot with custom coloured hubs and spokes and I’ll be offering this as an option on more wheelsets in the future.

The wheelset weight is 1399 grams – super light for such a stiff and durable wheelset.

Some new silver bar tape and custom-painted stem top cap and preload cap finish it off.

Kah needed a matching rear for his Lefty front wheel which I built earlier in the year.

After a long wait the DT Swiss 240s single speed hub arrived. After some pink decals it was ready for Kah.

The Alpine is the lightest “non-race” rim in the Stan’s range and is essentially a newer version of the ZTR Olympic.

DT Swiss Revolutions and alloy nipples keep the weight down – since the DT hub has wide flanges these spokes are plenty stiff enough for all of Kah’s horsepowers.

I also fitted a pair of DT Swiss 36 point engagement rings to make for snappier acceleration and a much better noise when coasting.

This week Sapim released a new light-weight spoke they call the SuperSpoke. The SuperSpoke is 20% lighter than the current lightest steel spokes on the market – the DT Swiss Revolution and Aerolite and Sapim Laser and CX-Ray.

How is it so light? By thinning the diameter of the spoke at both the head, the thread, and the middle section they use less materal, and therefore less weight.

Most spokes use a 2.0mm head and most hubs are designed around this measurement. The SuperSpoke uses a 1.8mm head which will be a loose fit in almost all modern hubs. Some light weight hubs might come specially drilled for the smaller SuperSpoke which would be great, but for most hubs this is a real downside.

The center section of the SuperSpoke is 1.4mm in diamter – narrower than the Laser or Revolution which are both 1.5mm. The narrower center section will mean the spokes ‘windup’ more when being built, but this isn’t really a problem for an experienced wheel builder.

The threads of the SuperSpoke are 1.8mm (15 gauge) so will need to use 15 gauge nipples. Some other spokes like the DT Swiss SuperComp and Aero use 15g threads. Other than the weight savings there is no real benefit, but no real downside either (other than harder to find 15g nipples.) A 15g nipple is thicker and therefore theoretically stronger.

It’s very important to note that these spokes are 20% lighter and therefore 20% less-stiff than the already flexy Revolution / Laser / CX-Ray / Aerolite.

Sapim make some durability comparisons which is great except that well-built wheels with components chosen correctly for the application don’t break spokes.

So what is the purpose of these spokes? As I see it they fit well for only one type of wheel: where high spoke count is desired for durability and less susceptibility to accident damage but isn’t required for stiffness. A 32h downhill wheel with a stiff rim is a good example, or a front 32h road training wheel.

Downhill is going through another weightweenie phase at the moment so I expect there will be some demand here, especially with very stiff rims like the carbon fiber Edge Composites.

For most other wheels a reduction in spoke weight isn’t really necessary: If the reduction in lateral stiffness is acceptable then weight can be reduced through the use of fewer spokes. Since aerodynamic drag is tied closely to the number of spokes it makes sense (especially on a road wheel) to go this route. The round-section SuperSpoke will also not be as aerodynamic as the bladed CX-Ray / Aerolite.

It’s great to see some development in spokes and more options are always better! This is a specialist spoke and will have a narrow range of applications but it’s great to see Sapim pushing forward.