Wheel / Hub advice for the larger than average rider

MarcBC

Hello,

I hope a 1st post as a question is not too rude.

I am a 18.5 stone (117kg) beginner rider with a daft idea to do the End2End Isle of Man race in September. I am using this as a target to get fit for. I am not sure my weight will reduce that much, perhaps by 40kgs (1.5 stone) due to my physical size.

One aspect of my bike (2008 Scott Scale 20) that bothers me are the wheels; DT Swiss XR1 32H built on DT Swiss XR1 hubs.

I am not convinced they are strong enough for my weight and offroad riding such as End2End.

I am thinking of upgrading to hand built 32 spoke DT Swiss FR6.1ds with Hope II hubs.

Are these good and strong wheels? If not, any (polite ) ideas? The various DT Swiss Mavic etc websites do not help me.

Marc

nicklouse

your best bet is to find a wheel builder and talk to them.

I would not use DT or Hope.

DT rims have been known to be a little weak and i have seen too many bust hope pro 2s.

a mavic rim on a XTR hub.

MarcBC

Thanks Nicklouse,

I have spoken to a couple of wheel builders and they seem to want to push me in a direction which is too expensive. Not only that but they conflict.

Re XTR, I thought about those, but my training buddy, an ex Cat 2 road racer and MTB XC racer has some bad things to say about them.

ride_whenever

I'd say xt/xtr hubs, they are cup and cone, but are very well sealed, you might need to learn to do cup and cone maintanence, it's easy but best to learn in a home environment.

36hl rear and 32 up front. Lace them onto some decent mavic rims with high quality dt double butted spokes. If you've got the money in your budget, get sapim cx-ray spokes, very very strong spokes.

As for the rim, the xm719 as an absolute minimum, probably better to go for the 721 for a bit more width.

Joe_Pineapples

I recently purchased a set of handbuilt wheels from Merlin.
XT QR hubs, heavy duty DT plain guage spokes (downhill approved!) and Mavic EN521 enduro rims, all for the ridiculously low price of £130!

If they wont take the pressure, nothing will!

Joe.

nicklouse

Joe_Pineapples wrote:

I recently purchased a set of handbuilt wheels from Merlin.
XT QR hubs, heavy duty DT plain guage spokes (downhill approved!) and Mavic EN521 enduro rims, all for the ridiculously low price of £130!

If they wont take the pressure, nothing will!

Joe.

plain quage spokes build a weaker wheel than BD spokes.

MarcBC what area are these too expensive wheels?

Oh i am not quite a as tall as you but not far behind in the Kg´s

oh and my recommendation is with an Eye to finishing and serviceability on the trail.

andyturner28

nicklouse wrote:

your best bet is to find a wheel builder and talk to them.

I would not use DT or Hope.

DT rims have been known to be a little weak and i have seen too many bust hope pro 2s.

a mavic rim on a XTR hub.

You really think XTR's are better than Hope Pro 11's? :? I'v always thought they are prety much bomb proof, and the obvious one for the short list for a heavy rider. Your right in them not being servicable on the trail though!

ride_whenever

Nic broke one a while back IIRC, and there have been a couple of cracked hub bodies as well as flanges.

However I'm 6' and close enough to 100kg, I've not had any issues with mine other than the freehub not being greased enough on arrival so the pawl springs wore through in 3 months.

I think even on a 75km ride you're unlikely to need to service the bearings, possibly only a little true if you have an unlucky crash.

If you want to keep the price down, xt hubs, mavic 721 and dt double butted spokes. They're bomb-proof and will last a good long time, however when the hub races eventually die (a good long time away) you'll need new hubs unlike with the hope ones.

batch78

Re XTR, I thought about those, but my training buddy, an ex Cat 2 road racer and MTB XC racer has some bad things to say about them.

Does he ride Campag and SRAM? If so he won't have a good thing to say about any Shimano component!

Best Shimano hub you can afford, preferably XTR, double butted spokes and a Mavic rim will see you fine.

As has been said before, the strength comes in the building so find a good wheel builder.

Oh, and good luck with the weight loss and training.

Joe_Pineapples

nicklouse wrote:

Joe_Pineapples wrote:

I recently purchased a set of handbuilt wheels from Merlin.
XT QR hubs, heavy duty DT plain guage spokes (downhill approved!) and Mavic EN521 enduro rims, all for the ridiculously low price of £130!

If they wont take the pressure, nothing will!

Joe.

plain quage spokes build a weaker wheel than BD spokes.

MarcBC what area are these too expensive wheels?

Oh i am not quite a as tall as you but not far behind in the Kg´s

oh and my recommendation is with an Eye to finishing and serviceability on the trail.

If plain guage spokes build a weaker wheel, why do Merlin say:
"For downhill and heavy duty wheels we use DT plain gauge stainless steel spokes, these are the strongest available."

GT Destroyer

Marc - I am 19 stone and have ridden on '07 XT hubs and XM317 rims for ages now and I've never had any strength issues with the wheels at all, just to give you a bit of cinfidence that you can find the right rim-set and they will be strong enough.

smackmypitchupǃ

nicklouse wrote:

your best bet is to find a wheel builder and talk to them.

I would not use DT or Hope.

DT rims have been known to be a little weak and i have seen too many bust hope pro 2s.

a mavic rim on a XTR hub.

Hey where was this advice when I asked the same kinda question, albeit from the perspective of a 15 stoner.....?

bust Hope Pro II's? Have you also seen a lot of bust Revolver's? What do you rate for bubs that is non cup n cone?

smackmypitchupǃ

nicklouse wrote:

Joe_Pineapples wrote:

I recently purchased a set of handbuilt wheels from Merlin.
XT QR hubs, heavy duty DT plain guage spokes (downhill approved!) and Mavic EN521 enduro rims, all for the ridiculously low price of £130!

If they wont take the pressure, nothing will!

Joe.

plain quage spokes build a weaker wheel than BD spokes.

is just internet chinese whispers.

A bloke, possibly Brandt, might have suggested it way back in hyperspace. maybe 12 years ago.. and forum harpies have been repeating it ad infinitum ever since. Even one of our crappier magazines dare to state it as fact a month or two ago.

It just isn't fact. Nor is it science. It's nothing more than a fanciful notion. You don't add strength by removing material.

A DT 14G spoke has to be stronger than a DT 14/15/14/G but a DT 15G will likely be weaker than a DT 14/15/14G....

Those minimally spoked designs.. all one thing in common... big thick (14G to 13G?) straight pull spokes.

dave_hill

Plain gauge spokes may well build a stronger wheel but....

A wheel built with plain gauge spokes has inherently less "give" than one built with butted spokes.

In theory, this means that a plain gauge spoked-wheel is more likely to fail suddenly than a butted spoked-wheel, simply because it has less in-built flex.

However, it's all relative - it takes an AWFUL lot of abuse to destroy a bike wheel. I doubt many of us who contribute here will ever do so.

I'm surprised at Merlin - their wheels are pretty tidy and whoever builds them does a good job - but most craftsman wheel builders will use butted spokes a) to reduce rotating mass and b) to give a more compliant wheel, no matter what the application.

As for the minimalist straight pull spokes - many of them (e.g. Mavic) are actually flat spokes, or if they are round they may be carbon fibre or composite carbon/aluminium.

Lets face it - the only reason to use plain-gauge spokes in a non-straight pull application is to keep costs down.

smackmypitchupǃ

But no scientific experiment has ever revealed a butted spoke to have more give nor would I expect it to. That db is stronger than straight is just an appealing and fanciful notion. I think all you can really claim with any certainty is that 14G is stronger than 15G. But 14/15/14 is stronger than 15G.

Besides, when you're in the market for a new set of +£200 wheels, the £5 per end difference between straight gauge and double butted is a mute point. Though I expect that's a good return to the manufacturer and retailer.

The only reason Merlin build with DB is cos that is all they have in black!

supersonic

Yes they have. Sorry mate, you are totally wrong and I tried to explain this before in your other post:

"So where are you getting your science from? I said it builds into a stronger wheel. What happens is that more of the spokes in the wheel flex and support the loaded area with a DB build. They distribute the load better, last longer - have you ever seen a spoke snap in the middle?!

As a single unit, a PG spoke is stronger in the middle. Useful if someone regularly jam branches into your wheels. The actual reason why people use PG spokes or should do is to reduce flex for greater power transfer. But these wheels do fail quicker and stressd the spoke eyelets more, do not transfer impact force as effectively and stress the hub drillings more too.

So to reiterate - they build into a stronger more resilient wheel. Jobst Brant has a good book that you should read. The myth is that DB spokes build into a weaker wheel."

Sheldon Brown reiterates these facts, as do many other builders who have realised that DB spokes make for a longer lasting wheel. In addition DB spokes fail less at the elbow too!

supersonic

Double-buttedspokes are thicker at the ends than in the middle. The most popular diameters are 2.0/1.8/2.0 mm (also known as 14/15 gauge) and 1.8/1.6/1.8 (15/16 gauge).
Double-butted spokes do more than save weight. The thick ends make them as strong in the highly-stressed areas as straight-gauge spokes of the same thickness, but the thinner middle sections make the spokes effectively more elastic. This allows them to stretch (temporarily) more than thicker spokes.

As a result, when the wheel is subjected to sharp localized stresses, the most heavily stressed spokes can elongate enough to shift some of the stress to adjoining spokes. This is particularly desirable when the limiting factor is how much stress the rim can withstand without cracking around the spoke hole.


Triple-butted spokes, such as the DT Alpine III, are the best choice when durability and reliability is the primary aim, as with tandems and bicycles for loaded touring. They share the advantages of single-butted and double-butted spokes. The DT Alpine III, for instance, is 2.34 mm (13 gauge) at the head, 1.8 mm (15 gauge) in the middle, and 2.0 mm (14 gauge) at the threaded end.
Single- and triple-butted spokes solve one of the great problems of wheel design: Since spokes use rolled, not cut threads, the outside diameter of the threads is larger than the base diameter of the spoke wire. Since the holes in the hub flanges must be large enough to fit the threads through, the holes, in turn are larger than the wire requires. This is undesirable, because a tight match between the spoke diameter at the elbow and the diameter of the flange hole is crucial to resisting fatigue-related breakage.

Since single- and triple-butted spokes are thicker at the head end than at the thread end, they may be used with hubs that have holes just large enough to pass the thick wire at the head end.

smackmypitchupǃ

To the above. IT HAS NOT BEEN PROVEN.

You demanding that you be considered correct is laughable.

Sheldon Brown was not infallible nor was he that kind of an engineer who could determine such. I'm not either. Which makes my opinion as valid as his, and yours no more valid, since you are merely repeating a chinese whisper with no foundation. If Sheldon Brown claimed db spokes were stronger (I don't recall him doing so) he may just have been offering it again as a notion. Perhaps even influenced by Brandst... he often was... though Brandst was not the oracle either. Just two old timers from yesteryear. They knew more about maintenance than me, but neithe rman was the oracle. Neither man was infallible. The bible is not infallible.

Anyway, when you find the scientific evidence showing that double butted anything is stronger or more durable (because of more give etc) than straight gauge, wheels or otherwise, you post it below this post. In the meantime, don't talk to me like a doofus. My 2:1 SEP BEng may be 10 years old, and I'm not the oracle either, but I know hokus pocus when i hears it.

The whole notion that db spokes build a stronger/ more durable/more magic wheel either began in cyberspace 12 years or so ago with the likes of the occasionally incoherent and ego-maniac Brandt or it was mulled in a sentence by funky haired Sheldon. Proof would have to come from real world testing, elaborate jigs, and fancy computer shenanigans.

I'm quite happy to consider that grain alignment (from the second (?) upsetting or forging process) might play a positive effect., but even then.... it's just a notion.

How often do wheels need to give? I could suggest spokes that give might be more inclined to unwind....

come on... let's get all fanciful.

supersonic

Proof HAS come form real world testing - time and time again by people who have built these wheels! Butted spokes HAVE to be more elastic by definition! (actually a swaged spoke to be correct, a thinner middle section with thicker ends). Why do wheels built this way last longer? Why do the spokes last longer?

Roger Musson also adheres to this way of thinking, not just Jobst, who has somewhat more quals than you do.

You are also confusing spoke strength with built wheel durabilty.

"It just isn't fact. Nor is it science. It's nothing more than a fanciful notion. You don't add strength by removing material.

A DT 14G spoke has to be stronger than a DT 14/15/14/G but a DT 15G will likely be weaker than a DT 14/15/14G...."

DT say that their DB spokes are STRONGER!

"The classic lightweight spoke for all round use.
The 14 / 15 gauge double butted spoke is 1.8mm thick in the centre to save weight, but 2mm thick at the end where strength is needed.
The butting process adds strength throughcold forging of the metal."

Stop talking rubbish.

smackmypitchupǃ

supersonic wrote:

Proof HAS come form real world testing - time and time again by people who have built these wheels! Butted spokes HAVE to be more elastic by definition! (actually a swaged spoke to be correct, a thinner middle section with thicker ends). Why do wheels built this way last longer? Why do the spokes last longer?

Roger Musson also adheres to this way of thinking, not just Jobst, who has somewhat more quals than you do.

You are also confusing spoke strength with built wheel durabilty.

Stop talking rubbish.

Anecodtal. All of the above. And an attempt to bully also.

How terribly arrogant. Have you no humility?

And hang on....

it's still a notion which you regurgitate. totally fanciful..

I'm not confusing anything. read my posts in this thread. I address durability, supposed give or elasticity, and strength. and I consider the evidence (of which there is none) and conclude it be hokus derren brown pokus.

You can believe what you like. that don't make it right.

You'd have to get 30 wheels built the same at least and test them in a jig designed to load, unload, load, unload.. in a realistic way, to prove what you are repeating is true..

otherwise.......

you're pissing in the wind daisy. like your.





























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....

supersonic

I have quite had enough of you. After posting plenty of evidence from a variety of sources, real world testing and from the worlds leading authority on wheels you decide to insult my... mum.

Consider yourself banned until you grow up.

MarcBC

I went with Nicklouse's suggestion in the end. XTR hubs with Mavic 719 Disc rims. Stuck with 32 spokes though. Handbuilt.

There was another rider in the shop about 16 st and he had been using 717s for some time without any issue, so these should be good for me.

The LBS I went to recommended these, even when I was trying to go up budget wise.

In answer to GTs post, some of the wheelsets were comming in at over £ 600 for just hubs (e.g. Chris King) and Rims (eg Crossmax, Deemax etc). Also looked at DT Swiss and Fulcrum Zeros.

In the future I may go that route but until I become fanatical about this sport (I am somewhat OCD about my hobbies), the current wheels should do.

Thanks for all the responses, including some of the tech stuff towards the end. :shock:

XTR Chainset, block and chain next.

Joe_Pineapples

I ticked the upgrade box on Merlin's site specifically to get plain guage spokes, which were a cost extra.
I'd tied my old XC717 rear wheel in knots and wanted something stronger but not too heavy.

EN521's should fit the bill just nicely.