Wheelworks.co.nz, Handbuilt wheels by Tristan Thomas

This is another of the new Shimano DH-S501 dynamo hubs and was also paired to a Rohloff rear wheel which I built a few weeks ago.

This wheel uses the excellent Salsa Delgado rim. The Salsa rims are great for everyday use and have a good balance of reasonable weight and great durability.

This is the new Shimano DH-S501 dynamo hub which produces 3W at 6 Volts. I built the rear Rohloff wheel for this bike a few weeks ago with a matching Semi 29er rim.

The Center Lock hub will accept a disc rotor which makes for a great supercommuter setup.

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.

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.

Robert is putting together a supercommuter based on a Merida S’Presso. I built a Rohloff from PureSports into an all-black Semi 29er rim with DT Swiss Competition spokes and black brass nipples.

I’ve built a lot of Rohloff hubs but this was the first time that I’ve installed one onto a bike. Installing one of these is very different from a normal geared bike, and at first is very intimidating. Once you figure out how each bit works it’s actually a very simple job – the hardest part is making sure the cable routing looks nice and tidy. The hub deals with all the indexing itself so all that’s really required is running the cables around the roller which actuates the hub.

In a moment of total-overkill I used the lathe to cut the end of the grip. With all twist-shifters you need to cut down the grip to fit, and it’s very important that the end is perpendicular so that the twist shifter can rotate easily. Usually this is done with a craft knife but a parting tool on the lathe did a much cleaner (and quicker) job.

I’ve got another one to install onto a Singular frame once some more bits arrive…

Andrew has two Thorn touring bikes with Rohloff hubs…the old rims were getting a bit thin at the brake track so it was time for a replacement.

The amazing thing about the Rohloff hub is how well they last.  These two look like they’ve done a lot of miles yet the axles spin freely and they still change gear well.

I rebuilt the two hubs with Sun Rhyno Lite eyeletted rims and I used DT Swiss Competition spokes and brass nipples.

Here is a quick-reference chart for Rolhoff Speed Hub 14 spoke length.

These calcs will work with disc or non-disc hubs – remember that all Rohloffs are 32 hole and to be laced 2x both sides.

If you’re using spokes available in 2mm increments then round up to the next size, ie: if the chart suggests 261mm then round up to 262mm.

I’ve found that DT Swiss nipples work the best for the high exit angle caused by the Rohloffs large flanges and I generally avoid DT Swiss rims as I’ve found the eyelets restrict the rotation of the spoke nipple.

Rohloffs seem a bit intimidating to build at first but once you’ve done a few they’re actually very easy – the symmetrical flanges and large distance between spoke holes makes them easy to lace and the flange spacing builds into a pretty stiff rear wheel.

A silver Rohloff wheel for Puresports.  The Rohloff is a 14 speed internal gearbox replacing the normal 3 chainrings and 9 rear cogs on a mountain bike or touring bike.  They last forever and they’re awesome :-D

Rohloff recently announced they had produced their 10,000th Speedhub14 internal gearbox rear hub.  PureSports were lucky and managed to acquire a red hub with the serial number 10,001 which I built into a Stan’s ZTR Flow 26″ rim with Sapim Race spokes and nipples.

The new red colour is fantastic!  At Eurobike this year Tune announced a lightweight shifter for the Speedhub 14 (photos courtesy of Light-Bikes.com) which would be a great match.