Should I build a track / fixed wheel or buy off the shelf?

warrior4life

I want something stiff and light-ish,
I was looking at Halo wheels or i was thinking of building a mavic cxp 33 rim with sapim x aray spokes and an ambrosio track hub.

I'll be doing some track racing, quite a bit of road riding and some hill training.

I want to spend £150 max and i just want a rear wheel... Any suggestions?

acidstrato

your gonna do hill training on a fixed wheel with a track gear....no your not

unless you've built a wheel before, just buy off the shelf

warrior4life

Yeah thats the plan, The bike's pretty light and i do enjoy pushing up steep hills.
I've got up some pretty steep hills on my bowery 84 with the bullhorns and a chainset that flexes like crazy.

Just built up a langster with a sram omnium chainset and some lighter bits, Its nice and stiff and all i need is a stiff back wheel, I've just moved to derbyshire dales and i'm surrounded by hills.
Its just the challenge i enjoy.

redvee

Building shouldn't be too dificult, equal length spokes on a dishless wheel. The hardest thing will be getting the right length spokes and lacing the wheel up.
Build it yourself, if you get it wrong after a few attempts admit defeat and walk shame faced into the LBS and let them true/tension it for you.

Mark Elvin

I'm dead chuffed with my wheels from WWW.V-SPRINT.CO.UK

Having said that, I'd very much like to be able to build wheels.

warrior4life

Mark Elvin wrote:

I'm dead chuffed with my wheels from WWW.V-SPRINT.CO.UK

Having said that, I'd very much like to be able to build wheels.

They look pretty good, would like to read some more reviews first, Its a nice website though, Thanks.. Ben

Monty Dog

I'd try a self-build. Planet-X were doing hubs for £15 (same as Ambrosio) and Halo rims are nice and durable for £25 each - perfectly feasible to buy the bits for £60. As wheel isn't dished, build should be straight-forward and you'll learn a useful skill.
As for hill-training on track gears - I do this regularly - pushing 50x17 on a local 10%-er for 1 mile half a dozen times gets the quads aching!

warrior4life

Many thanks Monty Dog.
I love planet x so will definitely take a look!

I used to get up 20% on my bowery 46 X 16 and the bike wasn't light and it was flexy so with a stiffer frame and less weight and 48 x 14-15 (havent decided yet) I should still be ok

acidstrato

20% climbs on a fixed 90" gear... you sir, are a god among men

warrior4life

acidstrato wrote:

20% climbs on a fixed 90" gear... you sir, are a god among men

It was out of little place near Whitby called boggle hole and also the hackness hairpins.
Its wasn't pretty..
I spend quite a lot of time in the gym because i hate being skinny, I do a lot of my climbing when im out of the saddle with my upper body.

Im not a good climber but i can sprint, when i do steep climbs like that its more like watching sprinting in super slo-mo.

I really want to try rosedale 33% chimney on fixed 48 x 17, I want to video it weather i make it or not and put it on youtube.

ride_whenever

I'd go for one of these really good idea (i think) or one of the 6-bolt disc hub conversions for a better method of fixing your sprocket on.

As for rims, the mercury is a pretty light rim and i'm impressed with the ones i've got.

For spokes, avoid the cx-ray primarily because they will take up most of your budget for a comparably small weight saving, but also because they're more difficult to build a wheel with sort of...

warrior4life

I was tempted by these
http://www.ison-distribution.com/englis ... t=WHHATTKD

But didn't know if this would be better?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... _562wt_905

Which would you go for?