Wheel advice needed.

Zool375

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum, and fairly new to cycling in general. I ride a specialized sectuer on my commute to work and after two years trouble free the rear wheel recently developed play at the hub.. My Local mechanic stripped it down and found it the hub to be loose, after putting it back on the bike, it still rides okay but after spinning the wheel up, a small but perceptible wobble can still be seen at the cassette and it doesn't sound as smooth as it did.. It's a mavic cxp22, I'm told he can rebuild me a wheel using the same rims but different spokes as the hub is non standard but he'd charge £90, im looking to replace the wheel(s) with a factory wheel set but would like some advice as what to buy I'm looking for durability over outright speed as I ride every day in all conditions. Any help appreciated. Cheers

alfablue

You can get a brand new handbuilt wheel for less than that. I got an Exal 17 on Tiagra hub from Spa Cycles for my commuter. Brilliant build quality, excellent service, £81 delivered including rim tape (many don't include this).

Of the rims they offer, the Exal rim is tougher, the Chrina is narrower and more like a Mavic Open Pro. The Sputnik is heavy duty.

supersonic

Many cassettes appear to 'wobble' - it isb usually completely harmless. If there is no play in the freehub or hub bearings, just ride on.

MichaelW

The rims may be Mavic but the hubs are not. The Secteur uses some generic cartridge bearing hub.
Which part of the wheel was loose:
The hub on the axle.
The "freehub" on the hub
The cassette on the freehub
In a wheel rebuild, the rim is usually regarded as consumable, braking wear eventually makes the rim too thin to use.

The usual maintenance on these types of wheels is to replace the bearings (small industrial cartridge bearings) and tighten to a correct torque.

Zool375

Cheers for the replies, the play came back although not as severely as before. Instead of taking it back, i managed to get a friend to have a look, he adjusted the bearings with cone spanners, which is all the bike mechanic did apparently, the slight wobble he reckons is from possible wear from the bearing being loose which has either bent the axle or damaged the bearings slightly. Now I've seen someone do a cone adjustment I think I'll order some cone spanners and make it a regular check. As for the wheel it's still okay but may look at a hand built pair as suggested in previous post! The spa cycles option looks good and Ribble do some great looking hand built wheel sets for under the price I would have paid the local mechanic for just one!