Wheelworks.co.nz, Handbuilt wheels by Tristan Thomas

This is Chris’ new road bike; a BMC SLC01 Pro Machine with an Easton EA90 SLX fork.

The frame anrd fork were purchased from Capital Cycles and I built it up using Chris’ Chorus groupset and Wheelworks wheels. 7.14kg and ready for the Tour of Southland :-)

I’m busy with wheelbuilding these days so it was a bit of a treat to break out the tools and do a complete bike build.  The build went together really easily – no parts needed heavy modification or custom fabrication which are so often required to get the best out of high end bikes…although a straight-forward build makes life easier I really enjoy that side of things so I found it a bit of a ripoff :-)

The end result is a simply stunning bike!

I custom polished a pair of DT Swiss 240s hubs to match the silver CX-Ray spokes and silver Kinlin XR-270 rims.  I love these all-silver builds, I think they look classic yet have all of the performance of a modern high-tech wheelset.  These wheels are destined for a red steel Serotta so we used red Wheelworks decals on the hubs and rims.

The actual wheelset weight is 1444 grams; that’s 150-200g lighter than similar priced Campag, Fulcrum or Mavic wheelsets.

What do you do when you want to fit a full carbon threadless fork to an older Giant frame which used an internal 1″ threaded headset?

The Giant frames of this era used an internal bearing threaded 1″ headset, and a threadless version is not available. In order to fit a full carbon 1″ fork it was necessary to either replace or modify the existing threaded bearing cone.

We chose to modify the existing headset cone rather than machine a new one.

In the photos you can see that the internal threads of the cone were removed so that the internal diameter is 0.05mm larger than the largest radius of the fork’s steerer tube. The threads are not completely removed but the surface area remaining is more than enough to correctly support the cone, and by completely removing the thread the internal diameter would be too big and the cone would not locate correctly on the bearing.

The external hex used to tighten the threaded cone was also removed and the external diameter is identical to the headset spacers which are to be used, thus having a visually clean appearance.

In order to tighten the headset we opted to machine a custom sleeve which would be epoxied inside the steerer tube of the fork, like an Alpha Q. The custom sleeve features a 1.5mm wall thickness, counter-bores at each end to save weight, and a one-piece threaded center section. It is 40mm long so as to support the stem area over a wide range of adjustment.

The topcap was also custom machined to fit the radius of the stem, and to give a clean appearance.

The topcap and sleeve weigh 31 grams which is considerably lighter than a standard 1″ expander plug.

What appear in the photos to be imperfections are in fact the remnants of coolant from the machining processes.

-Tristan

These are a nice sensible pair of wheels for a gentleman who logs a serious amount of miles on his bike.  Neville’s old wheels had started breaking spokes and he wanted something light weight but super durable.  I laced a pair of Kinlin XR-270 rims to DT Swiss 240s hubs – the total weight was 1493g for the pair which is lighter than almost any off-the-shelf wheelset and durability will be fantastic.

The DT Swiss 240s hubs are one of the most durable hubsets out there.  The star-ratchet mechanism requires almost zero maintenance and literally never wears out.  The hubs run on large 15×28x7mm bearings which means fewer bearing replacements.  Although the 240s hubs are expensive their on-going running costs are so low that after a few years they look to be pretty good value – especially if maintenance isn’t your thing and you just want to put the wheels in the bike and ride :-)

Spokes are DT Swiss Aerolite, the front is laced 24×2 (which personally I think is the best looking lacing pattern) and the rear is 28×3.

The Stan’s ZTR hubs have arrived and they look really good.

The front hub weighs 162g, the rear 250g – in total that’s lighter than a pair of DT Swiss 240s 6-bolt hubs for about half the price!

All front hubs are pretty straight forward and there is generally little to go wrong:  two bearings held on an axle.  The rear hub is the important one – a poor quality freehub mechanism spells the death of a rear hub.  The Stan’s design is quite straight forward – there is a large 15mm diameter axle running end-to-end supporting the freehub body and hub shell.  Each endcap is removable and the hub can be disaembled with two 5mm allen keys and one 10mm.  Once the driveside endcap is removed the freehub body pulls straight off the axle.

The freehub is a fairly standard 3-pawl system and each pawl has it’s own spring.  There wasn’t much grease in the freehub, probably so it sounds loud in the showroom, but I’ll add a bit of oil to keep things running smoothly.  The freehub is sealed using a tapered contact seal – I’ve never seen one of these used for this purpose before.

All the parts are replaceable and the Stan’s importer has promised to keep all small parts available which is great news should anything go wrong or get damaged.

The included quick release levers are good quality, reasonable weight, and have a secure, positive feel.

All up I’m impressed.  Durability has yet to be tested in local conditions but guys in the USA have been using these hubs for a while now with no problems.

Hayden recently approached me wanting to convert a Tune King front hub to QR15 for use on one of the new Fox forks.  QR15 uses a thru-axle style quick release of 15mm diameter – hence the name ;-)

At 145g the Tune King is a very light front hub.  I machined a preload spacer to sit between the two bearings – this spacer was 12g and can stay in the hub when it’s being used with a standard 9mm quick release.  I also machined two endcaps so the hub can accept the 15mm thru-axle .

The factory axle weighs 23g and the new parts I made total 29g so being used as a QR15 hub it should weigh 151g – as far as I know this is the lightest QR15 hub out there :-)

I’m a big fan of the Stan’s mountain bike rims – they are very stiff and durable and amazingly light for their strength.

Stan’s announced earlier in the year that they would be making their own hubs and they’re due to land here in NZ by the end of September.

The hubs look to offer great value for money – the weight is very low and prices are great.  The hubs run on large bearings; the quick release / QR15 front uses two massive 6902 (15×28x7mm), the Heavy Duty uses two 6904 (20×37x9mm) and the rear uses four 6802 (15×24x5mm) which should mean long bearing life and low maintenance.  The hubs accept 6-bolt disc rotors and the QR versions include the quick release.

These hubs will build into versatile wheels using either a rim from the Stan’s range or another brand.  Please drop me a line if you’d like to discuss options.

From Cameron:

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My weekend was pretty awesome. I rode out to Makara as part of my warm up and then stood in a registration queue for 15 minutes which wasn’t particularly helpful which left me with 10 minutes to sprint up and down the road to warm up again.

Senior Men started with Master 1 Men which has some rather fast people including Hisky. At the start heaps of people flew off up the road and I did my best to not over cook it to early which I have a bad habit of doing. Ended up riding a good portion of the early race with Hisky who looked a bit shocked that he was being beaten by quite a few people.

The latest kit order has arrived!  If you’ve ordered kit you’ll recieve an email from me over the next couple of days confirming your shipping address…all kit should arrive on your doorstep by the weekend :-)

I do have a few extra sets – email or call if you’re interested.

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