Wheelbuild: Hoshi Galore!

Here's a couple of sneak peek of what we've built for Rocket Company. For their latest projects, they wanted to built two track bikes, all with interesting concepts of their own. For those builds they wanted to use bladed spokes on ordinary hubs that wasn't specifically designed to accept bladed spokes (they usually have slotted spoke holes, not rounded as commonly found), so then Hoshi hook-end bladed spokes are ordered in specific length for each wheel.

First was this 24" (yes, it's that small!) Araya ADX-4 tubular rim, laced in radial pattern to 32-hole Suzue ProMax high flange front track hub (not shown) with 219mm 14g Hoshi bladed spokes and ACI Alpina alloy nipples.

Each ACI nipple have ABS nylon insert to prevent the nipple from unscrewing once trued. Sweet detail indeed.

Next was a pair of 32-hole Campagnolo Record Pista low flange hubs laced to Campagnolo Sidney 2000 rims, this time with Wheelsmith silver brass nipples. Since the lacing pattern will be radial at front and 3-cross at rear, the spoke lengths are respectively 269mm and 280mm.

Here's the front wheel final result. You can see how hook-end spokes work, their hooks are inserted directly to the spoke holes. If you look closer you can notice how each spoke blade are stamped with "Hoshi" markings.

Curious on the rest of the build? Stick around, because we'll spread them out for you when they're done.