Wheelworks.co.nz, Handbuilt wheels by Tristan Thomas

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 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.

After some punishment on a Specialized SX Trail the factory-built wheels were breaking spokes so it was time for a rebuild.  Jason opted for some new rims at the same time as the old ones had a few flatspots – all expected on a bike like the SX.

I replaced the bearings in the rear hub with some new SKF units, and then built both hubs onto the new FR600 rims.  This is a 600g freeride rim which is single-eyeletted and welded at the seem.

Spokes are DT Swiss double-butted Competitions in black and matching black DT Swiss brass nipples.

The most important thing when rebuilding a used hub is to lay the spokes in the groves formed in the hub flanges – this means that whatever lacing pattern was used originally has to be replicated.  By not laying the spokes in the existing groves the flanges are far more likely to break (never a good thing.)  The downside is that a lot of factory-built wheels dont have the hub logos lined up with the valve hole in the rim – this doesn’t effect performance but having the two lined up is a sign of professionalism.

The latest issue of New Zealand Mountain Biker magazine has a write-up of an interesting pair of wheels I built using Hope Pro2 hubs with custom polished centers, light weight DT Swiss Revolution spokes, and Stan’s ZTR Arch rims.

The rear wheel is dishless, meaning that the rim is centered between the two hub flanges.  On a normal hub this isn’t the case because the cassette body pushes the driveside flange in towards the centerline of the wheel.  The result of the wide, symmetrical flanges of the Hope Pro2 Singlespeed hub is a huge improvement in wheel stiffness compared to a normal ‘geared’ hub.  Normally the Pro2 can accept 6 cogs on it’s short freehub body, a nod to it’s heritage as a trials-specific hub and the old requirement for 26″ bikes to have 6 functional gears.  By mounting the freehub body in the lathe and removing some steel from the back of the freehub I fitted 7 cogs from an XT cassette giving a 13/32 ratio.

Why?  Personally I’ve run only 7 or 8 gears on my rear wheels for years – by moving the cassette outwards the chainline in the middle chainring is greatly improved for climbing in the middle ring and I find that I don’t miss the two smallest cogs unless I’m riding long distances on the road.  By squeezing these 7 cogs onto the Pro2 SS hub the wheel has the advantage of better chainline as well as a huge increase in lateral stiffness.

Both hubs had their centers polished to match the silver spokes and some custom Wheelworks decals applied.  The front wheel can be set up for 9mm quick release, QR15 or 20mm thru-axle forks.

This wheelset is designed for aggressive cross country / all-mountain / light freeride and weighed a total of 1705 grams (the magazine typo’d and said 1800) which is incredibly light for a wheelset of this stiffness and durability.  A lighter version for cross-country could be built using the lighter 355 or Crest rim.

The guys at the magazine really understood the purpose of the wheels and were impressed by them -

I wasn’t thinking ‘my current factory-built 28 spoke wheelset is flexing a bit and makes for a slightly vague ride’ until I tried this wheelset.  The difference in feeling is striking and I can see big benifits for big or aggressive riders.

The magazine is in all good bookstores now.

Nothing sounds as cool as King hubs – the 72 engagement points provide nearly instant engagement and that awesome ‘angry bee’ sound when you freewheel.

These hubs are laced with DT Swiss Competition double-butted spokes and alternating black and gold spoke nipples.

Rims are the excellent Stans ZTR Arch.

These wheels are ready for a hard life on a Turner RFX freeride bike :-)

This singlespeed rear wheel will be heading down for the Kiwi Brevet in February.

It’s a DT Swiss 240s single speed hub. Normally these hubs have 18 engagement points but DT Swiss recently released an upgrade kit to double the engagement points to 36.

The new ratchet rings are also 9 grams lighter than the 18 point version because of some amazing machining work.

The rim is a Stan’s ZTR arch – their 420 gram “all mountain” rim which is really well suited to applications like a single speed where lateral stiffness and durability are needed.

I used DT Swiss Revolution spokes to reduce weight – since the rim is so stiff we didn’t need to use stiffer spokes.

Total wheel weight was 820g before the 9g reduction from the ratchet rings.

Like all of the Stan’s wheels I build these are shipped with the yellow tape and two valves so they’re ready for use with inner tubes or with tubeless.

A great looking pair of wheels coming in at a remarkable 1460 grams.

We used DT Swiss Revolution spokes for the front and driveside rear and the stiffer / heavier Competition spokes for the driveside to add some lateral stiffness.

The rear wheel uses black brass nipples on the driveside and red aluminum nipples on the non-driveside.  The front wheel uses aluminum nipples on both sides but alternating red and black to match the rear.