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Well for some time now ive been looking at building my own wheels as im running cheap quandos at the moment, (bearings need replacing regulaly and spokes are constantly loosing tension)

so my hubs and rims have finaly arrived

ive gone for mavic xm319 rims, and novatec d042sb hubs (not the lightest of hubs in the world but they were fairly cheap for a sealed bearing unit, so i thought what the hell! we shall see how they go...

just ordered my spokes now ive done the calculations so once they arrive i shall get building





what you guys think?

Excuse my ignorance (bought up on Skyway Tuffs LOL) but what calculations, or was it just spoke length ?

Always wanted to have a go at building a wheel but apart from threading the spokes through the hub i know nothing about it, what with all the different patterns etc !!

Haha yeah you need to know flange distances pitch diameters. its the way of working out what spoke length to use without just using trial and error

http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/spokecalc/ heres a website which shows you how to work it out, but you also have to know the erd of the rim (the effective rim diameter) then you can put all the info into calculators online to work it out... (there are sums you can do but im lazy)

then you have to work out how to lace it whether you want radial, 2 cross, 3 cross or 4 cross, basically the more crosses the stronger the wheel. Ive gone for a 3 cross just because i feel it looks better than the 4 cross... if u want some info i can possibly do a step by step guide... let me know

Would be good to see the wheels get built up on here with a few pics, something i've not seen before and i quite fancy buying some wheels but in component form so i get exactly what i want and building them up could be fun !

Ok ill see what i can do whilst building them

just waiting for the spokes to come from rosebikes in germany ive gone for dt swiss champion spokes.

Flange distances pitch diameters !! A great conversation topic to start down the pub

Haha only with like minded people andy ive mentioned wheel building to my mates who are into their cars and they think its a load of old crap lol

Ironically i have spoked wheels on one of my cars !

Lol so do my friends but where as i adjust my wheel with the spokes they just get somone to put a weight on theirs to balance it. they all talk about weight saving and buying lightweight wheels for their cars but im not allowed to talk about my bike!!

andthen to top it all off i dont have a nice car anymore as i have to get the wife kids and dog around so i have a family car

I'd highly recommend Rogers book for anyone thinking of getting into wheel building (he wrote the spoke calculator mentioned above) http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php

It cost £9 but you can download the updated version for free every time he adds something. I learnt to build wheels from this and, well, after several sets, I'm still alive!

So here they are built in all their glory...

Will see if I can put together a how to guide this weekend...

They look very smart
time will tell how well you did them

Haha no faith!!! i reakon they should be ok ive put a tension gauge on them and they are all up to what they should be, im fairly confident...

I'm only playing i'm sure you've got them nailled.

what do they weigh in at ?

Rear is 1126 grams. without cassette, disc, tyre and tube
front is 733 grams, without disc, tyre and tube

not the lightest in the world but i can say that i built them myself and they are a sealed bearing unit which in my eyes has gotta run better than my old shitty wheels.

as a comparison my old wheels were 1567 and 1067. so ive saved quite a bit. next time though i will buy lighter hubs...