Wheelbuild: Old Meets New

Over the years of wheelbuilding business we've stumbled upon one particular rim that seems to be a favourite for many applications: H Plus Son's TB-14. We've built them into e-commuter, track, gravel-grinding, and even recently, cyclocross wheels. This time, we built them into a nice set of road wheels. A special one on that matter.

Wheelbuild: Campagnolo Everything

It's been quite a while since we feature a track wheelbuild here. Not that we no longer deal with them, mind you—they still popped on every once in a while on our mechanic's Instagram—but more than often they are brought home before we have a chance to snap a picture or two. This time, we're working with a build that stayed just enough for a photo session and parts worthy for a feature to boot.

Wheelbuild: Light, Strong, Pretty

Contrary to the popular belief, the colour pink have more relation to masculinity in the world of cycling than anyone would ever thought. For years, pink jersey is used to identify the overall leader of the Giro d'Italia, which was based on the colour of the paper used to print the La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper, the original sponsor of the race.
In 2004 Chris King launched a limited edition series of pink headsets and hubs to raise awareness for breast cancer research and to raise funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Two years later, Chris King added Pretty and Strong pink to its standard list of available colours.

Wheelbuild: Double Trouble

We're often asked to do rim swaps. Usually the client wanted to switched the hubs or rims of their recent wheelset, whether to drop some weight or to upgrade from the factory, vendor-sourced stock hubs. But in this particular case, we stumbled upon something entirely different. As the certain Team Rocket once said, prepare for trouble, and make it double...

Wheelbuild: Long Live The King

In the age where people treat their wheels as consumables, it is easy to see why a lot of people prefers to buy a ready-to-ride, factory built set of wheels. You'll find them in a wide choice range to suit your pursuit of lightness/stiffness, or to match your budget.

But sometimes some people would like to take their factory built wheels even further.

Wheelbuild: Stan's Notubes Grail to Hope Pro 2 Evo

Being a small operation, we're not blessed with massive parts inventory. While we can source parts to suit your specific needs, if you want to have your wheels built as soon as we can, we're limited with what we've already have in shop. But sometimes, when the stars are aligned and the moon shines unobstructed by the clouds, we met with customers who brought in their own parts to be built. This is one of the examples.

Wheelbuild: Xero CXR6 Rims to Rotaz Hubs

The story began when I found a set of secondhand Xero Lite CXR6 wheels during my random late night wandering at Bukalapak. Since this complete set of entry level 10-speed road wheels only costs me less than one million rupiahs, or about US$75, I figured out it's a bargain.

Being the weight-conscious person as always, I weighed them as soon as they arrived. The front and rear wheel clocked in at 950 grams and 1180 grams respectively. Even heavier than my 32-spoked daily driver, Novatec A291SL/F482SB laced to Alex Race 24 rims (830/990 grams respectively). The good thing is that the CXR6 rims are wider than Race 24, and the low spoke count (20/24) makes them a rather nice set of rims to play about.

As one of my good buddy said, it's better to regret buying something rather than regretting the decision of not buying it. Surely there is something I can do about this.

Wheelbuild: Chris King R45 to Reynolds Attack Carbon Clincher

Some people prefers building their wheels from scratch, but it's much simpler for people to bought factory-built wheels, especially when the said wheels are packed with latest technology like proprietary spoke designs and such. And some people went along the way by customizing their factory-built wheels with components that better suits their needs.

Sumvelo x Pancalen Cycles: Wheelbuilds

The bean has been spilled, we got a couple good responses after last week's post. We're also excited waiting for the prototypes to arrive. Here's another sneak peek on the project, namely the wheels we'll be using.

Wheelbuild: Tune Mag 170 to Campagnolo Victory Tubular

There’s always a first time for everything, including in wheelbuilding. I remember building my first expensive wheel back then, a Phil Wood hub laced to Velocity Deep-V rim (well, maybe not that expensive, but at that moment those things would left a serious hole on your wallet). This time it’s an extra lightweight Tune rear hub laced to Campagnolo Victory tubular rim.

Wheelbuild: Campagnolo Record Pista to Mavic Module E2

This is a pair of classic track wheels built for our friendly neighbour at Cicli Boom. The wheels will be used on their latest historical feature, so stick around for more information. Meanwhile, let's have a look in this classic beauty.

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.

(Pre-)Wheelbuild: Shimano Dura Ace 7403 Hubset

A while back, the good lads at Cicli Boom wanted to build a vintage wheelset for their latest project, and they managed to obtain a set of new-old-stock Dura Ace hubs from the one and only Speedbicycles.

Speedbicycles Gmbh (Ltd liab. Co) (SARL) is a company established in 2003, specializing in purchasing, selling, repairing, restoring, and providing advices on vintage lightweight bicycles. It all begun when Stefan Schaefter, the owner, started collecting and restoring vintage bicycles in early 1980s. Over the years this collection specialized into lightweight bicycles and got selected and refined.

His passion on vintage bicycles is easily reflected elsewhere. Opening the package directly sent from Switzerland is a wonderful experience in itself.

Wheelbuild: Formula to Velocity Aerohead O/C

Ever since I saw one on an old Ritchey catalogue, I've always wanted to build a rear wheel using off-centered rim. An off-centered rim, or offset rim, means the spoke holes are placed a little to the left from rim's centerline, so that the angle formed by the spokes, or spoke dishing, are equal on both sides of the rim. This creates a more uniform spoke tension between the drive and non-drive sides of the wheel resulting in greater strength and reliability. Off-centered rims solved problems commonly found on rear multispeed hubs, since the drive side flange on these hubs are offset to the left to provide room for cassette or cog cluster, the tension on drive side spokes are higher.
As an addition to their popular Aerohead model, Velocity also offers the off-centered version, the Aerohead O/C.

Wheelbuild: Shimano Ultegra 6700 to Alex Rims AT400 Pro

This road wheelset belongs to Fitra, the co-conspirator of our friendly neighbour Cicli Boom. He wanted to built a decent quality, lightweight, touring ready, multispeed 700c wheelset with the best components available that won't break up the bank.

Wheelbuild: Phil Wood to Araya CTL-385

This classic style track wheelset is built for Mandra Widya, one of the mastermind behind Sumvelo, the first Indonesian webshop for fixed gear and single gear parts and accessories.