custom wheels vs stock wheels

Six years ago I built a pair of sprint wheels for a friend. The front wheel
had a 240-gram rim, 28 spokes (1.5mm with alloy nipples), used Mavic hub.
Rear was a used Campy 32-spoke rim, same spokes, cheap Shimano hub.
Including used Clement silk sew-ups, a used cogset, and a spare front rim
(used), the whole set cost me $140. She was used to riding 32-spoke 14-gauge
clinchers. Her next race was the Colorado Cat. 4 state championships. She
didn't feel any improvement until the final sprint. Then she said that the
bike rocketed ahead of the other girls and she got 5th place. Not bad for
having started racing 2 months earlier. The next year she bought Contis that
ran at 180 psi and won the Cat. 4 state championship.

Then she bought a pair of Mavic Heliums for training. The Heliums were too
heavy for her to race on. :-)

My sense is that manufacturers make wheels capable of surviving a 180-pound
man crashing at 35mph. My friend weighs 130 pounds, and women hardly ever
crash. So custom wheels made sense for her. For crits she didn't need
aerodynamics. Women's races usually don't have breakaways, they ride
together until the final sprint, so lighter wheels make all the difference.
--
Electronic Anti-Stuttering Devices http://www.casafuturatech.com
Thomas David Kehoe Casa Futura Technologies (303) 417-9752

in article [email hidden],
[email hidden] at [email hidden] wrote on 3/4/06 10:40 AM:

Quoted message said:

I saw my friend building a set of custom wheels and came to thinking
about what would be a better way to go about getting a nice pair of
wheels: buying a sweet set like Mavic Kysrium SSC SL series(either new
or through eBay) or building up a nice pair wih some good rims and some
good hubs, maybe Chris King, DT spokes.etc etc. Well of course if you
went the eBay route and scored some nice Mavic Kysriums, you wouldn't
be paying the full retail and it would end up being less than paying
for a set of new rims, new hubs, new spokes, nipples to make your
custom wheels. Just curious to see if anyone had a preference to custom
wheels than to stock wheels or maybe you mixed and matched(custom up
front, a stock wheel in back), or tried both but prefered one over the
other. Just as a benchmark for comparison, any wheel that I desire
would be 28 spoke, stock or custom.

Quoted message said:

Well of course if you
went the eBay route and scored some nice Mavic Kysriums, you wouldn't
be paying the full retail and it would end up being less than paying
for a set of new rims, new hubs, new spokes, nipples to make your
custom wheels.

I doubt it even then. You could build up a very nice set of custom
wheels for <$500... maybe a lot less. And then there is the case of
buying "custom" wheels on ebay. As an example someone is selling a new
Open Pro/ Dura Ace 7800 set, 28 2.0/1.5 spokes, on ebay with a buyitnow
of $350. I'm not certain, but I bet those would be lighter than the
Ksyriums, too... especially if they have aluminum nipples.

The advantages of custom wheels are that the parts are easy to find and
replace, you can get an adequate number of spokes so you can still ride
the bike if one breaks, you can get them built to match your riding
style and weight, and if they are well built they should last longer
than boutique wheels... and they are cheaper.

For most people riding road bikes, it makes sense to have more spokes
in the rear wheel than the front and even use a heavier rim... it is
weaker because of the dish, and it carries more of the load.

If you are racing on these I'd suggest aero spokes (WS AE15s or Sapim
CX-rays), and an aero rim at least 25mm deep.

Thomas David Kehoe said:

Then she said that the
bike rocketed ahead of the other girls and she got 5th place.

Rockets! I'll have to add that to cold fusion, zero point energy,
and... the placebo effect... as possible reasons why light wheels are
so much faster.

Ron Ruff said:

Rockets! I'll have to add that to cold fusion, zero point energy,
and... the placebo effect... as possible reasons why light wheels are
so much faster.

I liked the part about the 130 pound woman riding 180 psi Contis.

Art Harris

Arthur Harris said:

Ron Ruff said:

Rockets! I'll have to add that to cold fusion, zero point energy,
and... the placebo effect... as possible reasons why light wheels are
so much faster.

I liked the part about the 130 pound woman riding 180 psi Contis.

What many people fail to realize is that the more air you put in your
tires the heavier they are...

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Ron Ruff said:

Arthur Harris said:

Ron Ruff said:

Rockets! I'll have to add that to cold fusion, zero point energy,
and... the placebo effect... as possible reasons why light wheels are
so much faster.

I liked the part about the 130 pound woman riding 180 psi Contis.

What many people fail to realize is that the more air you put in your
tires the heavier they are...

wheel radius: r_w = 0.34 m
tube radius: r_t = 0.01 m
density of air: d = 1.3 kg / m^3
volume of tube: v = 2\pi r_w \pi r_t^2 = 3.36 e-4 m^3
mass of air in tube: 4.33 e-4 kg / bar.

--
Michael Press

Michael Press said:

mass of air in tube: 4.33 e-4 kg / bar.

Exactly.

I've built hundreds of wheels, for a local bike shop, and for my own use.
None with a spoke count less than 32.
Yet, I consider all of those wheels "custom", as they were assembled, by
me, from separate components, all made by different manufacturers.

On a given course, I am consistently faster on my 23lb Serotta (36 spoke
wheels), than my 19lb Trek5000 (32 spoke wheels.)
Go figure.

Quoted message said:

I saw my friend building a set of custom wheels and came to thinking
about what would be a better way to go about getting a nice pair of
wheels: buying a sweet set like Mavic Kysrium SSC SL series(either new
or through eBay) or building up a nice pair wih some good rims and some
good hubs, maybe Chris King, DT spokes.etc etc. Well of course if you
went the eBay route and scored some nice Mavic Kysriums, you wouldn't
be paying the full retail and it would end up being less than paying
for a set of new rims, new hubs, new spokes, nipples to make your
custom wheels. Just curious to see if anyone had a preference to custom
wheels than to stock wheels or maybe you mixed and matched(custom up
front, a stock wheel in back), or tried both but prefered one over the
other. Just as a benchmark for comparison, any wheel that I desire
would be 28 spoke, stock or custom.

--
Tp,

-------- __o
----- -\<. -------- __o
--- ( )/ ( ) ---- -\<.
-------------------- ( )/ ( )
-----------------------------------------

No Lawsuit Ever Fixed A Moron...

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

I saw my friend building a set of custom wheels and came to thinking
about what would be a better way to go about getting a nice pair of
wheels: buying a sweet set like Mavic Kysrium SSC SL series(either new
or through eBay) or building up a nice pair wih some good rims and some
good hubs, maybe Chris King, DT spokes.etc etc. Well of course if you
went the eBay route and scored some nice Mavic Kysriums, you wouldn't
be paying the full retail and it would end up being less than paying
for a set of new rims, new hubs, new spokes, nipples to make your
custom wheels. Just curious to see if anyone had a preference to custom
wheels than to stock wheels or maybe you mixed and matched(custom up
front, a stock wheel in back), or tried both but prefered one over the
other. Just as a benchmark for comparison, any wheel that I desire
would be 28 spoke, stock or custom.

I would go with custom wheels. I would skip on the Chris King hubs and use
some Dura-Ace, or Campy Record, depending on the rest of your drivetrain.
You will end up with excellent wheels for a lot less money and it will be easy
to get replacement parts when needed.
------------------
Alex

Take a read of my thread on this subject from back in December:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/browse_frm/thread/afb42429b3da5d3f?q=waterrockets&hl=en&

I was more interested in durability than weight. I ended up building
myself a set of Velocity Deep-Vs with Ultegra hubs (didn't want to
splurge the $ for the grams). I have 36 spokes in the rear and 32 in
the front. Most of the advice in the thread recommended the Velocity
Fusion, but I wanted to be a little more aggresive with respect to rim
strength, and decided to take the weight hit.

I was immediately able to measure a speed improvement on TT-type
efforts vs. my previous Open Pro/Dura-Ace wheels. On top of that, these
wheels will probably outlast my knees.

I ended up paying around $300 for all the parts, which isn't a huge
bargain, but fair. I wouldn't have been able to get a 36H rear any
other way, as far as I could tell (w/out having someone else build it
custom).

-Mike