Is building your own wheels "always" cheaper?

Manc33

After watching a YouTube video on wheel building I think I understand it, he kinda built the wheel in four quarters. I want to have a bash at building my own, but only because I expect to save about £30-£40 per wheel that way, plus its something to do.

I know some shops do special deals where you do get the wheelset for the flat cost of the components, but I think that is the exception, not the norm.

Folks, why does everyone that have their wheels built up give the shop the hubs and rims and leaves the shop to choose the spokes? Is it risky giving them your own spokes because they might not be the right size?

Was going to use a pair of old Mavic M3CD (36 spoke) wheels from an old touring bike, but arrrgh, its a 1990s six-speed cassette with the freewheel built into the cassette. Forget that. The front wheel weighed 1002g anyway, not heavy, but certainly not light.

Going to "risk it" and try to build a wheelset around the 1200g-1300g range. I'll just have to keep losing fat, never ride over a pothole, true them all the time... :roll:

All I know is those Triban 3 stock wheels have got to go.

edscoble

Never.

get some Shimano R501 and ride it to fuckery.

desweller

Depends on how you assess cost.

TCO should be lower as you can replace rims as they wear, rather than binning off the whole wheel as is frequently the case with factory wheelsets. Hand built wheels are usually better built as well.

Depending on how you define the specification of a wheel the initial cost can be higher (e.g. if you prioritise weight over strength). If you do not intend to build many wheels then the amortisation cost of the tools can be significant too. The durability of the wheel is also dependent on your ability to make a good job of it.

Manc33

edscoble wrote:

Never.

get some Shimano R501 and ride it to fuckery.

Those are really cheap at £99 I have to admit, but they weigh 1960g. Thing is that's light for wheels so cheap.

God knows what the Triban 3 wheels weigh, I think someone once said the front wheel alone weighs 1400g or 1600g or something. Well sod that, thats the weight of a complete wheelset that can be had for well under £300.

I totted up a 1500g wheelset for £230. All the prices are US converted to GBP (worked it out from ProWheelBuilder), not sure if that price is attainable in the UK and it would have postage costs from the US (and probably import duty and all that crap).

Hell maybe even eBay has this exact same stuff cheaper, who knows.

Rims: Kinlin XR200 - 770g - £49.57
Hubs: Velocity Road (32H) - 355g - £126.36
Spokes: Sapim Race Silver - 359g - £39.07
Nipples: Sapim Polyax - 20g - £13.28

Total cost: £228.28
Total weight: 1504g

Then there's the Velo plugs and skewers but let's pretend they don't exist.

I know these wheels would be very weak, well I guess, I mean people have claimed 1200g but I am not sure what they themselves weigh. You gotta be a waif to be safe on these wheels.

cycleclinic

You will have to add VAT to those prices + shipping which will not be cheap if they are coming from the U.S. XR-200 wheelset 24F/28R is what I ride and I am 80kg but kind to wheels. I would not call them week though as I have hit many holes and the wheels have survived unharmed. I would suggest 75kg as a sensible limit. With novatec hubs mine weigh 1360g.

Those rims, hubs and spokes are available in the U.K if you know were to look. Building wheels is easy, building them well takes patience if it is your first time but there is no black art.

Manc33

thecycleclinic wrote:

XR-200 wheelset 24F/28R is what I ride and I am 80kg but kind to wheels. I would not call them week though as I have hit many holes and the wheels have survived unharmed. I would suggest 75kg as a sensible limit. With novatec hubs mine weigh 1360g.

If your wheels are 1360g based on those same rims I mentioned, how are they 140g lighter than the setup I listed?

For example the front hub I chose was only 80g! Novatech hubs can't be that much lighter than the Velocity Road hubs?

Unless you're spending £120 on spokes, not £40?

I am 80KG. :roll: Maybe 80KG rider / 1500g wheelset is about right. Going lighter than that when you're 80KG+ is probably just stupid.

None of these weight estimations ever mention bike weight, that is resting on the wheels too don't forget! You could have +/-20lb just from a 20lb road bike to a 40lb DH MTB.

I remember looking at those DH mountain bikes and seeing one that was 42lbs and cost £2,499 - I just closed the tab.

cycleclinic

I have a 28F/28R setup with Sapim Laser spoke, alloy nipples and novatec A291/F482 hubs.

hubs are 325g/pair. Spokes and nipples are 280g and rims are 385g each which works out at 1375g. My rims were a bit lighter (and most are) than advertised which is how mine came in 15g lighter.

I have put 3000+ miles on the wheels and quick miles too but they work for me and I knew they would. Sub 1500g wheels are not silly unless you are a wheel breaker in which case avoid. I have no hesiation in riding them more when the weather improves.

edscoble

Don't bother with wheels weight, tyres make the biggest difference.

Replace the rims with a Mavic A119 if you really want to keep it in budget.

wotnoshoeseh

Before you build, might I recommend you have a look at some of the specialist wheel building material.

Sheldon Brown has a guide for wheel building - I believe it is free - or there is the WheelPro e-book (by Roger Musson) available to download from the WheelPro website.

Cheers,
D

keef66

Manc33 wrote:

edscoble wrote:

Never.

get some Shimano R501 and ride it to fuckery.

Those are really cheap at £99 I have to admit, but they weigh 1960g. Thing is that's light for wheels so cheap

My R501's were £70 from Ribble

cycleclinic

The Mavic A119 is a touring rim great for touring, great for high mileage commuting not great as "racing" rims and lets face it most people want wheels that perform like race wheels even though they know deep down they will never be on Team SKY. It is a bit like people buy sport cars even though they will never race for Red Bull. We all want to feel good.

Tyres do make a difference but at this time of year the heavy winter tyres come out. A 100g difference in rim weight is also noticable the longer and the faster the ride, the more noticable the difference becomes but it can be argued that it not important either but I refer at this point to the above statement about feeling good. To me there is little point in using a really light rim like the XR-200 and then building with thick spokes as you have defeated the point of the light rim i.e to make a really light wheelset. You might as well, if you using sensible spokes pick a sensible rim.

There are plenty of senisble and utterly wonderful rims like the Velocity A23, H plus son Archetype or the Kinlin XC-279 that are in the 450g -500g range and are wide stiff and can built 1450-1700g wheels with depending on the hubs and spokes used. Rim weight makes some difference, it is not huge but it is there. As all thing performance there are dimishing returns.

The OP wanted to make a light wheelset all I have done is provide one extreme he does not have to follow that and at no point did I suggest he should. Roger Mousens books is recomended by some, I would not know as I have never read it - I do not need to. I have written a guide on retro bike though which is a bit shorter. At some point I need to add to it. It outlines the basics of lacing and tensioning but ultimatley practice is needed. There is no black art to this just pick the right components for YOU and be patient and methodical with the building.

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... 4#p2065304

ugo.santalucia

A typical building fee is in the region of 50-60 pounds and includes quite a lot of good advice, which is priceless... I would say overall is a bargain.
While you can build a set of 36 H rims on Shimano hubs and Sapim Race spokes yourself, I would not attempt to build a set of 1.2 Kg wheels yourself, as they might turn out sour fro a number of reasons, from bad choice of components to bad building technique

edscoble

thecycleclinic wrote:

The Mavic A119 is a touring rim great for touring, great for high mileage commuting not great as "racing" rims and lets face it most people want wheels that perform like race wheels even though they know deep down they will never be on Team SKY. It is a bit like people buy sport cars even though they will never race for Red Bull. We all want to feel good.

A119 is wide, weight reason (can run 23mm, but 25mm is preferable), cheap, easy to true and replace.

The vast majority of us speak of a placebo effect of how says, a lighter bike equal faster while in reality, you're just a fat fatty fatties who need to work harder.

If they want to feel good, losing 2kg on your body make a vast difference than 5kg on a bicycle.

ugo.santalucia

edscoble wrote:

The vast majority of us speak of a placebo effect of how says, a lighter bike equal faster while in reality, you're just a fat fatty fatties who need to work harder.

If they want to feel good, losing 2kg on your body make a vast difference than 5kg on a bicycle.

There seem to be a recurrent tedious pattern in your comments... given the account was created 5 years ago and you only have 30 comments or so, I will assume this is your second ID, the one you use when you get a ban on your first ID. This is of course against the rules... shall I go and check?

Monty Dog

Back on topic, strongly suggest you don't try to build a pair of 1200g wheels as your first build - rims at that weight are pretty flexible and you'll likely have trouble keeping them round and true without a tension-meter.
By all means start with a 32 spoke, 3-cross build - something like a pair of Kinlin rims, Novatec hubs and ACI double-butted spokes will be £120 and be in the region of 1600g. Try sdeals.com for all the parts.

slowbike

For my first build I just dismantled a rear wheel with a duff hub, bought a new hub and rebuilt it ... £20 or so for a hub made the whole experiment cheap enough to do and gained enough experience to know that whilst the job is fairly straight forward, it does require a reasonable bit of time and concentration to get it roadworthy ...
My test wheel is a turbo wheel ... I'm not really bothered if it fails ...

edscoble

ugo.santalucia wrote:

There seem to be a recurrent tedious pattern in your comments... given the account was created 5 years ago and you only have 30 comments or so, I will assume this is your second ID, the one you use when you get a ban on your first ID. This is of course against the rules... shall I go and check?

racingcondor

Great plan Ed. Troll the thread and then pick a fight with a Mod. Good luck with that.

OP - There is some good advice here. I think it's safe to say that you can save money building your own but you will probably spend a lot of time on that first set, either when you build them properly the first time or when you rebuild them later.

My first build I bought Open Pro's and laced them to Shimano hubs with ACI double butted spokes. You could do the same and save some weight using Novatech's but I'd be a little careful on your first build not to get carried away. Simple, well made parts make building wheels much easier, the Open Pro's built very easily whereas the second set of wheels I built were a lot harder (the rim had a nasty hop at the weld).

I found The Art of Wheelbuilding by Gerd Schraner useful.

cycleclinic

What rim was that racing condor. Some rims are really consistant like the Archetype and DT Swiss products. Open Pro are normally good but I have found some with a 0.8mm hop and the weld join that you can do nothing about.

For a first build a 32 spoke build with Race/comp/alpina DB spokes will always be easier.

taon24

I have now built 2 sets of wheels with DT swiss rims and spokes, shimano hubs.
I used sheldon browns advice, but looked at zinns book on road bike maintainence too.
It is probably cheaper to build your own wheels, but it takes considerable time. I would plan on ~5-10 hours per wheel to get your first few acceptably true and tensioned. £20-40 is not a big charge for doing something which would take you that much time, would you rather be cycling/doing other stuff?
The advantages are: 1) that you can learn to build wheels, and so can maintain your own wheels, which might be a big time saver/save trips to the bikeshop; 2) you can build whatever you want (I built my first set 32 3x rear and 32 2x front, my second 32 3xNDS/2xDS rear and 32 radial front)
Final advice - it is easy to have a round wheel. It is difficult to get a round, evenly tensioned wheel. I would definitely buy a tension meter if you don't have a good ear for musical notes.

cycleclinic

32 radial front is a risk with most hubs as there is not enough metal between the spoke holes. I personally prefer radial on 24 spoke count or less for this reason. Certainly shimano won't warrenty there hubs for radial lacing in this drilling and only DT Swiss (240) of the top of my head are rated for radial in 32H drilling. I say a risk it probably is not a big one but it is there. You are right about getting a round even tensioned wheel that is where the trick/patience is.