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My road wheels have reached the point where, frankly, there's less thickness of braking surface left on them than there is paint on the frame, so I need to replace them with some new 'uns before they put me down on the floor on the next big descent.
I like building wheels and was pondering building a wheelset around these:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/h-plus-son-archetype-hard-anodised-road-rim-aw17/rp-prod164303
...and Superstar's upcoming road hubs, due for release this month, build with DT Swiss Comp spokes. Cost will be about £300-350 all-in.
So, tell me why I shouldn't do this and what other options I might consider... 🙂
Hunt?
In a typical STW "recommend what you have" style, I have some Fulcrum Racing 3's that are light (well, I think so) and an absolute pleasure to service. I believe Campag Zondas are the same wheel with a different badge
In a typical STW “recommend what you have” style, I have some Fulcrum Racing 3’s that are light (well, I think so) and an absolute pleasure to service.
...and if the Fulcrum Racing 5 wheels on my gravel bike are anything to go by, I'd be servicing them a lot. The front wheel bearings lasted 5 months of dry riding before seizing tight and Fulcrum wouldn't entertain this as a warranty repair. Sorry, not considering Fulcrum wheels if they insist on using cheese instead of proper bearings. Yes, they were easy to change but I'd expect years from road bearings in dry use - damn, my Hope wheels have last years despite being dragged through mud and pressure washed every other weekend!
As a note, I would prefer to build rather than buy, but I suppose I'm open to anything. I'll look into Hunt as I've seen them mentioned a fair bit here.
The bearings on Fulcrum lower end wheels (apart from the CX versions which are double sealed) are only sealed on one-side, hence the lower lifespan - think the Campy equivalents are the same in fact. I had a pair of the 7 LG on my commuter for a while & found them pretty good, never needed touched, although I had packed the bearings out with extra grease to help protect them a bit.
Have second hand Zondas on another bike & they've been faultless despite getting on a bit - i'd have another set of these in a second if they needed replaced - same as the Fulcrum 3 apart from the rear lacing.
Hunt uses Novatec hubs, Kinlin rims & Pillar (I think) spokes on top of some nice branding, you might get them same thing from one of the specialist wheelbuilding places for slightly cheaper - a friend ran a set of the 4 seasons disc wheels right through 4 seasons in the West of Scotland & by the end of the year the rims were cracking round the spoke holes and looking a bit worse for wear - I think they warrantied them though.
If you're up for building your own, BDOP cycling in Taiwan sells their own diy wheel kits with everything you'll need to build them - pretty much the same stuff as you'll find in the Hunt wheels but cheaper, i've never bought a wheel kit from them but i've bought hubs & freehubs from them and they arrived surprisingly quick. The do a 1350g 20/24h wheel kit for $320 that looks good for the price...
https://www.bdopcycling.com/DIY%20WHEELS.asp
Good recommendation on the cheap wheel kits - great idea! I shall certainly look.
Regarding my Fulcrums, they were double sealed (well, the bearings had rubber seals on both sides), but both sides were seized solid. I got them going again and packed them up but they were clearly on their last legs and have since been swapped. Obviously, this took two attempts because Fulcrum use a bepoke bearing size, but the rubber seals are labelled with a different (standard) size bearing so naturally, I bought the wrong ones. Sigh.
The Fulcrum 3/Zondas have cup and cone bearings on the axles, so just need cleaning and packing with grease occasionally and the adjustment is an absolute doddle (I'm looking at you Shimano...). The bearings in the freehub are cartridge, I swapped them last week after they started to sound a bit rough, took me about fifteen minutes with £6's worth of bearings, the back of a 19mm socket and the subtle use of a hammer.
I asked for some advice on road wheels on another forum last week.
The advice I got was to for handbuilt and from two respected wheel builders use Hope or Miche hubs for reliability . Miche are cheaper but some concerns over freehub , Hope spares can be sourced easier.
The bearings in Novatec and Bitex don’t last UK winters due to smaller bearings though are fairly easy to replace. Think the Hunt ones have upgraded bearings and seals.
For rims I was recommended Kinlin, Dt 460 or the new Open Pro UST rims. All much the same by their reckoning.
Spokes was recommended Sapim, the more the better.
When I looked the Hunt wheels were similar money to what I could get handbuilt by a U.K. wheel builder.
i believe Hunt are assembled in Taiwan though most of the feedback I have seen is they are well built and are good on aftersales if there are any problems.
In the end, and for time reasons, I plonked for a set of Hunt Race Aero wheels which I've paired with a set of Schwalbe Pro One 23c tyres in tubeless configuration. I'm very happy with them and they ride well - I've done a couple of rides on them and am content...
...or rather I was content, until I noticed last night that the back wheel is well out of true after < 100 miles of riding and the spoke tensions are all over the place. The front wheel doesn't look massively better either. I have a spoke tension gauge - it's not an expensive one, but it's good enough for getting relative tension right across the wheel. On my wobbly back wheel, the NDS spokes are so slack that I can easily move them with one finger and they are actually off the bottom of the chart on my tension meter! I can only think that the tyres (100psi) have deformed the relatively lightweight rim enough to drop the spoke tensions right down.
I don't want to complain too much as Hunt have already offered to reimburse me the price of a tension and true at an LBS (the wheels are there right now), and fortunately I don't need the bike for a few days, but I am interested to hear if anyone else has had similar issues.
Hunt aren't Novatech AFAIK, pretty sure I've seen that stated somewhere - I have 29 XC wides and my LBS said they were the first 'factory' wheels they'd had in (they did the build for me) that didn't need truing. They were also decently lighter than the typical Hope/Pro4 build. Nothing unusual about them that couldn't be fixed locally either.
Not had a murmur out of them in 4 plus clumsy months of use, and went up tubeless easily. The freehub is a riot, this may or may not be to your taste.
Appreciate the road wheels maybe somewhat different but they've been doing them longer. I'd buy again.
(I do have Novatech hubs built onto H Plus Son Archetypes, and that has been a great wheelset, tough and versatile)
Road wheels needing truing? Bearings wearing out? Adjustments? That's why I have Ksyriums, they just run & run & run. "Ooh, no, non standard spokes!" yeah, that never need touching 🙂
(I am a daily commuter, not a road cyclist, if that matters)
Yeah, my old wheels were touched once, I think, in several thousand miles so this hasn't filled me with endless confidence. I'm hoping that this is just a blip and that a re-true will sort them out for the long-term.
No way the tyre pressure would have had that effect.
Poor build.
Wheels are back - front wheel needed some minor adjustment, but apparently the rear wheel needed loads, as expected - even I could tell it wasn't right!
They are back on the bike and they feel "right" now, so I'm happy. Will speak to Hunt about refunding the truing cost shortly...
You said you like building wheels but sent wheels to a shop to be trued and tensioned,
Wouldn't it have been quicker to do it yourself?
You said you like building wheels but sent wheels to a shop to be trued and tensioned,
Wouldn’t it have been quicker to do it yourself?
Yes, but Hunt were very specific about tensions and even the tool they wanted used to measure it. They were also footing the bill for the work, so I went with it.