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hello. As a winter project I'd like to finally scratch the itch of building my own wheels and am looking for advice on parts. I have a wheel jig and dish tool inherited from a friend but will need a thru-axle adapter + whatever other tools are required for this dark art.
Here are my requirements.
650b rims - to be used primarily as a second set on my gravel bike but as back up on MTB so don't need to be super wide.... 25?
hubs - 100 x15 front - ideally can be converted to boost with end caps if needed (and space out the disc) & 142x12 rear - 11speed, ideally converted to boost if needed as above
I don't want to spend a ton in case I make a mess. Reliability and ease of building in preference to super lightweight.
your advice is appreciated - cheers
Obvious answer would be hope pro 4 / Dt Swiss 350 hubs , sapim dB spokes on your rim of choice, I’m running that configuration with WTB Sti25 TCS rims. All in cost me £150 for components.
thanks - how did you get it to that price considering a pro4 rear hub is £140? Or where these second hand parts?
my other wheels have DT / Hope Pro2 Evo respectively but are there other hub options? I've looked at Novatec but no idea what is what or if they are convertible.
I liked this bloke's videos - some skip over important bits, but he goes into intimate detail (You can set it to 1.5 speed 🙂 )
Nukeproof axle adapters from CRC are a cheap way to get those - specialist adapters are pretty pricey [edit]oops, looks like I bought em all up.
Sorry, doesn't answer what you were asking, but might help with some other stuff 😀
I have some 650b WTB i23 KOM rims for sale they are brand new, if you are interested.
I guess £150 is 2nd hand.
My budget build is:
Xc421 =2*£30
pro 4 front £50
DT comp rear ~£15
DT revolution front ~£20
Novatec rear (already had, but would be min £50)
=~145 excluding rear hub cost and the above are the cheapest I could find
I don’t want to spend a ton in case I make a mess. Reliability and ease of building in preference to super lightweight.
Do you have any old wheels kicking around? Some that came standard on a bike and now sit unloved in a corner because they may be useful one day? If so take one apart and rebuild it. If all goes well build the wheels you want without fearing you'll make a mess of it
Hi,
I’ve built a few wheels, but not enough that I’m really skilled at it. The biggest difference I’ve found in how easy the tensioning goes is rim choice. The WTB rims I’ve built have been straight forward, so have some basic Mavic ones. Recently I built a lightweight Stans rim and I’ve really struggled to get it to hold tension - it’s the first wheel I’ve had to go back to and retighten due to spokes going slack.
So I would suggest getting reasonably solid rims for a first build.
No merlin had a deal on the hubs last year and the rims were 9.99 each at Planet X , oh sorry paid £50 to lbs for building them but that included the spokes.
Second hand hope hubs. Fronts can be had for 30ish and rears 50-80 for pro 2 Evo -> pro 4. If you are using convertible hubs then use the qr converters for the hubs instead of buying adaptors for your stand.
Thanks for the responses. I'll see if I can pick up some hopes secondhand and go from there.
Unfortunately I don't have a practice wheel as I sold / donated all my old rim brake stuff last year. I'm patient and mechanically competent so not worried about making a total mess but, yes it would have been a good idea to rebuild a wheel.
Planetx have some good prices on fulcrum wheels at moment - delivery was very quick - ordered friday sfternoon, delivery monday morning if you fancy some wheels to get you going before building your own.
Planet X and CRC often have rim bargains. If you don’t need silly strong but ok and light than a wtb i23/25 KOM could dona job. Or if you want a little stronger than a wtb Sti 23/25 would be good too. I’ve picked both of those options up for £15 or £8 from Planet depending on what sale they have on.
They have been putting out their el Guapo front hub for £15 too - it’s 15x100 - but they don’t stock different adapters. I believe they are essentially the same hub as a Stan’s Neo - so they may make boost adapters.
Spoke wise I’ve used aci black double butted spokes from Cycle basket on a wheelset for me, but I went cheaper with Halo straight gauge spokes from Je James for another budget wheel build. The aci spokes tensioned up nicer I’d say. Just with double butted spokes you need to be careful not to twist the spoke otherwise it can unwind a bit when you first ride it. Aci spokes are around £15 a wheel plus p&p, the Halo spokes were about £8 a wheel plus p&p. If you want DT Swiss spokes than Rose Bikes are your cheapest option.
Rear hub wise Shimano seem to be the cheapest but are cup and cone and non convertible. Novatec from Ali Express seem pretty cheap but I don’t know how convertible they are.
Hope secondhand pro 4’s could be good but still go for strong money I found. Superstar may have a few bargains left before their uk made hubs come online.
For my bike building projects I normally go for the custom wheels with:
actionsports.de
Great configuration page for custom wheels. Starting from 80 GBP to "high end".
For low cost projects I pick their "FunWorks" rims in combination with DT 370 hubs plus 6 bolt mounts for the brake discs.
Delievery time is very quick. Had once a wheel which was had shipping damage - sent the wheel back with a short note on it and right away got a new wheel.
@joebristol the DB spokes shouldn't unwind on the first ride. You release this during build, either by pulling the spokes together or putting the wheel on the ground and pushing down all around the rim. You'll need thick gloves to do the spoke method. If your wheels ping on the first ride you haven't done this step correctly.
Hi nixie - that’s why I was saying you need to be careful. Mine didn’t unwind because I made sure I overtensioned by quarter of a turn then turned it back quarter to make sure it wasn’t twisted. I then did the spoke easing by standing on the spokes all the way round the wheel a couple of times as I went though the build. My wheel hasn’t needed any attention at all since I built it so I’ve been really pleased with them 😃
👍sorry misunderstood your post.
My wheel hasn’t needed any attention at all
Always nice when it works well :).
So far so good anyway - it’ll probably collapse on me next time out now!!
thanks for the pointers joebristol, I bought some rims from PX a while ago the last time I intended to build some wheels but ended up paying a shop to do it - then never using the wheels and selling them. They seem to have a few options from WTB at different prices.
I looked at superstar for hubs but didn't see much, 2nd hand hope or DT looks the best bet.
Superstar are winding their stock down of previous hubs as they are releasing their own uk made hubs - wasn’t sure if they had anything left.
I think they’ll be a similar price to Hope though so I’ve gone down the Pro4 route for a new wheelset I’m going to start building as soon as I get the spokes from Rose.
Can’t go wrong with DT or Hope I wouldn’t think. If you want cheaper and new then maybe worth checking out Nukeproof - although I haven’t tried any of their hubs.