Wheel recommendation?

Gussio

Thanks

sketchley

Underscore wrote:

Yeah, I built a bomb proof 36 hole rear wheel for my commuter in early spring. Mavic Open Sport on Tiagra, Sapim Strong drive side and Race non-drive side with Velox cloth rim tape. Weighed in at 1030g (not including QR) on the kitchen scales (don't tell the wife!) Using 32 hole rims and DB spokes throughout, I would have thought that you ought to be able to get close to 1800g without losing much reliability...

_

Yes but you'll find the Mavic rim is much lighter than the Rigida and nowhere near as strong. And reliability is affected by weight of rider, as I said above.

UndercoverElephant

Crikey, Sketchley, you're right. The DP18s you got are about 100g each heavier than the Chrinas I have or the Open Sports. Still, on the plus-side that's a whole lot more Aluminium to wear through.

clarkey cat

I've got a Mavic A319 with Mirage hub on the back and whatever isnt flat and is nearest to hand goes on front on Orange.

Green has a halo aero something on the back and whatever isnt flat and is nearest to hand goes on front.

sketchley

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Gussio wrote:

walkingbootweather wrote:

Afraid I've never yet been brave enough to build my own wheels. Having bought and used hand built wheels I have concluded that, for my purposes, they have proven to be much better than factory wheels if you can afford the modest price difference.

Having been inspired by UE I might be inclined to have a crack at building the next set myself. The worst that can happen is I'll give up after several hours of frustration and pay someone clever than me to complete the job. I'm sure the satisfaction of doing it yourself would be great though.

Roger Musson's book has been a great inspiration. I've been thinking of having a crack at building a pair for about 12mths but not quite plucked up the courage

Roger Musson's book is great, the fact that I could build a truing stand using stuff I had in the garage (I even used an old set of stabilisers cut-down to make the drop-outs - I've progressed from needing them now ) and just give it a go made all the difference. Really couldn't have justified paying hundreds for the tools as well as buying poarts for the wheels.

Sketchley, does not compute: Tiagra hubs are 500g for the pair including skewers, Rigida Chrina rims are 510g each, 64 Sapim Race spokes 360g, 64 nipples are 20g. Add it all together, you get 1,900g. Admittedly, not as light as your previous wheels, but not exactly heavy.

You must be using hellish rim-tape.

DP18's are 590g each so there's 180g there. Ultegra hubs front and rear are 509g without QS which are 59 each so that's another 136g. So there's 316g more than your calculations already.

Also weight was as measured on the kitchen scales once built. Rather than manufacture quoted.....

Underscore

Sketchley wrote:

Yes but you'll find the Mavic rim is much lighter than the Rigida and nowhere near as strong. And reliability is affected by weight of rider, as I said above.

Fair enough, which begs the question: which gives a stronger wheel - 36 spokes and a lighter rim or 32 spokes and a heavier rim?

_

Gussio

Underscore wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Yes but you'll find the Mavic rim is much lighter than the Rigida and nowhere near as strong. And reliability is affected by weight of rider, as I said above.

Fair enough, which begs the question: which gives a stronger wheel - 36 spokes and a lighter rim or 32 spokes and a heavier rim?

_

Sheldon reckons the former (going by the article I just spent 30mins reading...).

sketchley

Underscore wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Yes but you'll find the Mavic rim is much lighter than the Rigida and nowhere near as strong. And reliability is affected by weight of rider, as I said above.

Fair enough, which begs the question: which gives a stronger wheel - 36 spokes and a lighter rim or 32 spokes and a heavier rim?

_

My understanding is that most of strength of wheel comes from the rim.

UndercoverElephant

The rim is held in tension by the spokes, which pull it towards the hub. The spokes have the vast majority of the job of keeping the wheel in shape. The rim, however must avoid getting dented on pot-holes, and by braking so it must have some strength to it, it must also be able to handle the tension of the spokes without crumpling or getting splits forming.

Also, if you are using fewer spokes, the tension in each spoke must be higher to give the wheel the same overall strength meaning that the rim needs to be thicker to handle the extra localised forces.

So in short, 36-spokes and a light rim may get knacked on potholes, but a 32-spoke wheel on a heavy rim may be marginally less likely to stay in true. It doesn't matter, of course, because 32 spokes is usually plenty. I have 36 F&R on the Equilibrium, merely because Ribble had those hubs in really cheap at the time.

clarkey cat

what tyres you running on the Genesis there UE?

UndercoverElephant

Vittoria Rubino Pro: when you absolutely, positively have to scalp every mother*&"£$ on your commute, accept no substitute.

sketchley

UndercoverElephant wrote:

The rim is held in tension by the spokes, which pull it towards the hub. The spokes have the vast majority of the job of keeping the wheel in shape. The rim, however must avoid getting dented on pot-holes, and by braking so it must have some strength to it, it must also be able to handle the tension of the spokes without crumpling or getting splits forming.

Also, if you are using fewer spokes, the tension in each spoke must be higher to give the wheel the same overall strength meaning that the rim needs to be thicker to handle the extra localised forces.

So in short, 36-spokes and a light rim may get knacked on potholes, but a 32-spoke wheel on a heavy rim may be marginally less likely to stay in true. It doesn't matter, of course, because 32 spokes is usually plenty. I have 36 F&R on the Equilibrium, merely because Ribble had those hubs in really cheap at the time.

That makes a lot of sense. Also would explain why I kept pulling spokes through the rims splitting them on the last two sets of wheels. Only time will tell how good the current rims / wheels are but for now very happy.

Rich158

UndercoverElephant wrote:

So in short, 36-spokes and a light rim may get knacked on potholes, but a 32-spoke wheel on a heavy rim may be marginally less likely to stay in true. It doesn't matter, of course, because 32 spokes is usually plenty. I have 36 F&R on the Equilibrium, merely because Ribble had those hubs in really cheap at the time.

I've never used more than 32 on my road bike and MTB and have never had a problem, although my MTB wheels are heavy DH jobs that'd make you wince if you ever tried to pedal the damn things. I commute on a 16 spoke Bonty front wheel that has never needed to be trued in nearly 3 years, however the rear was pretty much totalled in 3 months and now resides in the shed. My favourite wheels recently have been Campag Khamsins which have been pretty much bomb proof

sketchley

Rich158 wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

So in short, 36-spokes and a light rim may get knacked on potholes, but a 32-spoke wheel on a heavy rim may be marginally less likely to stay in true. It doesn't matter, of course, because 32 spokes is usually plenty. I have 36 F&R on the Equilibrium, merely because Ribble had those hubs in really cheap at the time.

I've never used more than 32 on my road bike and MTB and have never had a problem, although my MTB wheels are heavy DH jobs that'd make you wince if you ever tried to pedal the damn things. I commute on a 16 spoke Bonty front wheel that has never needed to be trued in nearly 3 years, however the rear was pretty much totalled in 3 months and now resides in the shed. My favourite wheels recently have been Campag Khamsins which have been pretty much bomb proof

Again this is meaningless unless we know what you weigh and where / how you ride. Bomb proof for a 65kgs rider pootling on country lane in the summer and bomb proof for me at 110kgs rider hitting London's potholes in deepest winter are two different things entirely.

Rich158

Sketchley wrote:

Rich158 wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

So in short, 36-spokes and a light rim may get knacked on potholes, but a 32-spoke wheel on a heavy rim may be marginally less likely to stay in true. It doesn't matter, of course, because 32 spokes is usually plenty. I have 36 F&R on the Equilibrium, merely because Ribble had those hubs in really cheap at the time.

I've never used more than 32 on my road bike and MTB and have never had a problem, although my MTB wheels are heavy DH jobs that'd make you wince if you ever tried to pedal the damn things. I commute on a 16 spoke Bonty front wheel that has never needed to be trued in nearly 3 years, however the rear was pretty much totalled in 3 months and now resides in the shed. My favourite wheels recently have been Campag Khamsins which have been pretty much bomb proof

Again this is meaningless unless we know what you weigh and where / how you ride. Bomb proof for a 65kgs rider pootling on country lane in the summer and bomb proof for me at 110kgs rider hitting London's potholes in deepest winter are two different things entirely.

OK rider = 70 kg's and all my road riding is done pretty much on south London's worst roads with some training in country lanes which are pretty ropey and racing thrown in. The only thing that threw the front wheel out of true was a crash at 20mph+ whilst racing. And we're talking hard riding here, definately not pootling about