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!
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’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.
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.
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.
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 :-)
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.
Copyright Wheelworks Ltd 2005 - 2010 All Rights Reserved