Wheel repairs …

Daves Reynolds carbon rebuild with E13 hub

Dave was having some problems with the rear hub in a near-new pair of Reynolds carbon 29er wheels.

The Reynolds rims are great quality and work really well – it’s just such a shame about the wheel’s hub and build quality. The spokes were miles too short and the spoke tension was extremely uneven. Combined with the poor quality hub Dave was less than impressed.

We replaced the rear hub with an E*Thirteen XCX – with 60 engagement points this hub makes a great sound while coasting and will accelerate quickly out of corners. The hub uses super large flanges and wide flange spacing to build into a stiff wheel and it’s also one of the rare hubs available in 24 hole.

DT Swiss Competition spokes and aluminium nipples round-out the build.

Malcolm’s rebuilt Pro2 rear hub with Flow EX rim

It’s always nice to give an old hub a new lease of life. Malcolms Pro2 was in good shape – the bearings still feel pretty good and the freehub body has a few marks from the cassette but nothing major. His old DT Swiss rim had seen one too many sideways landings.

We stripped the wheel and rebuilt the hub onto a new Stan’s Flow EX rim. The EX version is a big beast of a rim with a 25mm internal width and is a little stiffer than the old version.

DT Swiss Competition spokes with black brass nipples hold everything together.

Specialized Roval Fusee SL rebuild

In addition to building our own wheels we also repair wheels from other brands, generally to better quality standards than when they left the factory.

Generally these repairs go smoothly but this Specialized Roval wheel was a bit of a nightmare. Specialized were unable to supply a set of spokes and/or matching nipples so we had some air-freighted from the USA.

Once these arrived we rebulit the wheel only to have the rim crack at one of the spoke holes. Bugger! Luckily Specialzied were able to supply a replacement rim so once that arrived we laced the whole thing up and it’s on it’s way back to the customer.

If you’re having problems with a ‘factory’ wheel we’re able to fix them. If you’d like to buy a problem-free wheelset then please get in touch and we’ll build a pair of wheels which will suit your needs and give many thousands of trouble-free kms.

Deans Reynolds carbon 29er repair

Dean’s new Reynolds carbon 29er rear wheel was having some issues with nipples coming loose and spokes breaking. A couple of bike shops had tried to solve the problems but without luck so we rebuilt the wheel with new spokes and new spoke nipples. By ensuring that the wheel is well-built and the spoke tension is correct and even across all the spokes the wheel we know it will stay true and last a long time.

Campagnolo Bora repair

This old Bora arrived in the workshop for a service – a spoke had broken and the hub was feeling pretty tight. Gavin fitted a new spoke and trued the wheel – remarkably for such an old wheel it trued up really well as most carbon wheels of this era wobble uncontrollably.

The hub had a good clean and lube and is back to typical Campag roll-forever fashion.

Can any of you Campyphiles tell how old this is?

Shanes Zipp 404 rebuild / repair

This Zipp 404 arrived in a pretty sorry state – its rider was involved in the massive pileup on Southland’s second stage. 5 spokes were broken through their center section – probably from another riders pedal but remarkably the rim looks fine with no abrasions for cracks.

I fitted 18 new Sapim CX-Ray spokes and new spoke nipples and rebuilt the wheel from scratch. It’s now true to less than 0.10mm both laterally and vertically and with very even spoke tension. Once the tubular glue dries I’ll box it up and courier it back to Alexandra.

Daniels repaired Flite tubular

Crashing is an unfortunate side-effect of bicycle racing. Daniel hit the road hard enough in last years 5-stage NZ Cycle Classic to end his race on only the third day – it was a wet morning and the strong Palmerston North crosswinds were causing chaos in the bunch as were echeloned across the road with the early breakaway tried to establish itself. The crash happened just to my right – I’m not sure what the cause was but I felt my teammate Stu lean into my hip before he fell to the ground and it was good luck rather than good management that I stayed upright. Stu got off lightly with only a ripped jacket and a few scrapes but the damage to Daniel’s bike frame was terminal and ended his tour.

Luckily for Daniel his dad owns an identical pair of my Flite carbon tubulars so the rest of his race season was done on a borrowed rear wheel.

I inspected the rear wheel for damage but only the rim was destroyed so I re-used the hub and spokes but used new spoke nipples and a new rim.

The wheel is back to 100% and ready for another year of racing.

Richards Mavic hub and GP4 tubular rebuild

Richard supplied a tired-looking Mavic freewheel hub and GP4 wheel with rusted and broken spokes to be rebuilt.

I’m never a big fan of rebuilding used rims because you never know what outcome you’re going to get. With the spokes removed the rim was egg-shaped by 6mm which is a huge amount, but these older rims are quite springy and I was hopeful that with spoke tension it would pull round – luckily it did.

The Mavic hub is in great shape with smooth bearings. The 5 speed freewheel is a bit different to modern 11 speed cassettes!!

Rebuilt with new DT Swiss Competition spokes it’s ready for another 20 years of use.

Derek’s Reynolds QR15 adapters

Derek had a brand new pair of carbon Reynolds mountain bike wheels which weren’t being used because they didn’t fit his QR15 Fox fork. I machined two endcaps, a pre-load spacer, and fitted new bearings.

Bevan’s Gipiemme rebuild

Bevan’s Gipiemme rear wheel had been breaking a few spokes and spare parts were anything but easy for him to find. This wheel uses very rare 25mm long nipples and bladed spokes with a very long round barrel to clear the long nipples. The spokes need to be very heavy / stiff as there are only 20 of them in the rear wheel…nothing like that is available though any of my suppliers.

I rebuilt the wheel with round-section DT Swiss Competition spokes and new 25mm nipples. Calculating spoke length on strange parts combinations like this is always a challenge but it’s a tribute to my tooling and systems that the spoke length worked out spot-on first time.

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