I have my tin opener – pass me a can
of worms from the top shelf. Yep, I am about to discuss wheels; what size, what
rim, what spoke, what hub, wtf…
Tons of clearance with the Surly LHT fork
The wheels have probably been the
hardest part of the build process, mainly deciding on size;
26 inch or 700c? Not a simple decision as this has an
impact on what frame I went for. I considered a Dawes Ultra Galaxy, a
Planet X Kaffenback, an On One Croix De Fer, a Genesis Day One. All brands and
bikes I liked the look of a lot but that would mean I went down the 700c route
of wheels. But what happens if I head out on a far flung tour to places which
don’t support this size of wheel?
I made the decision early on that I
wanted to build a solid simple bike with components which could be repaired or
replaced wherever I happened to find myself (more on my decision to use an
Alfine 11 later). Using this basis I opted for
26 inch wheels; I would hope never to break a wheel on an expedition, probably
not even destroy a tyre, but inner tubes I can easily see me needing to pick
up. So if a place doesn’t stock 700c wheels then they are unlikely to stock
700c inner tubes. This is fairly fundamental and so made my choice to go for 26
inch wheels somewhat easier – I should now be able to replace inner tubes,
tyres, and even entire wheels wherever I go.
What rims? Not as hard a choice as
you might think, a few names cropped up again and again, mainly Mavic and Sun Rhyno. Sun Rhyno had
great reviews as a fairly heavy but very solid and reliable touring rim which
can handle rough trails and tarmac alike. Mavic 719 and
721 also had great reviews – there was some
forums mentioning cracking being a problem in the
Mavics but all these conversations were from way back in 2006 with this
problem little mentioned in later forums so it would
seem that Mavic have solved the issue. Mavics are a bit easier to get
here in the UK and with lots of choice so I decided on these and shopped around
for something in the width range I wanted and with good touring reputation, my
shopping arount took me to the On One website however, where they happened to
have a pair of Sun Rhyno Lite rims for £20 each – bargain! All thoughts of
Mavic abandoned I bought the Suns.
My Sun Rhyno Lite rims newly built by Big Al (keep reading)...
What hub? Well I had been toying
with the idea of an internal gear hub for a while since a mate told me about
his Rohloff Speedhub. I wasn’t about to spend that kind
of cash on a hub but with Shimanos Alfine 11 there was another option. Choosing the Alfine may appear to go against my
desire for a simple bike which is easy to maintain in the field but there are pros and cons to the internal gear setup and
to derailiurs alike.
Alfine 11 - looks good, hope it does the job
The advantages for the Alfine are that it should require almost no
maintenance in the field, it has a longer life than a derailleur drive chain, and I can use a single speed chain which will last
longer and wear less. The disadvantages are fairly fundamental, if anything
goes wrong with the hub then it can’t really be repaired in the field, but if
this does happen then my thinking is I can pick up a new rear wheel, convert
back to a simple derailleur setup and continue on my way. If this was a very
long trip then possibly send the hub home for
repair and have it mailed back out to me later on. The pros seem to outweigh
the cons for my requirements and the hub already has a good reputation for
reliability and longevity form people who have put a lot of mileage through
them.
As for the front hub I returned to
my desire for simple and maintainable so went for Shimano XT with cup and cone
bearings – worldwide parts and repair-ability.
The Alfine only comes with a
centrelock option for disk brakes so I also went for a centre lock front hub.
Not my first choice due to availability of spares but this design seems to be
taking off, it has its advantages, and if I really want to I can get an adapter
to take bolt on rotors so it wasn’t a great dilemma.
With all the components
for the wheels bought I had to think about building, I wasn’t going to try this
myself and I wanted a good job doing so I was willing to spend the cash on a
good wheelbuilder. I’m based in Aberdeen where we seem to have fairly few bike shops, Alpine Bikes and
Edinburgh Cycles being the big two. I was certainly not going to let Alpine
Bikes near my wheels – sorry Alpine but when I dropped off my MTB wheel for repair the work done was shoddy at best (cassette not
tightened, new spokes not done up, wheel not balanced), so I wont be using you
guys again. Edinburgh Bikes on the other hand have been great, knowledgeable
staff and very very helpful, I ordered the Surly frame through them and they
have been great – even fitting the headset for free. So Edinburgh were my
choice of wheelbuilders until I was told in hushed tones about ‘Big Al’ just
out of Glasgow, a wheelbuilder of some repute, such repute in fact that he
seems to have taken on mystical properties amongst his following and is seen as
something of a wheelbuilding deity – this was my man. I could feel it. Luckily
I was passing through Glasgow that week so I called in and dropped off all the bits, he even did
a full rebuild on my MTB wheel (so badly done by Alpine bikes) while I waited. I was
supplied with coffee thick enough to stand your spoon up in (he seems to drink
a lot of this) and supplied with a cadburys chocolate roll in case I was
hungry! As he rebuilt the MTB wheel there was constant bike based chat and lots of information
to help me with my project, while I looked around his workshop – wheels are
piled so high in every corner that some of the lower ones must be antiques if
they haven’t already been compressed into coal from the growing weight of new
wheels being added above, he then decided that the bearings were a little rough
on my wheel and so the hub got a full strip down and service too.
Rear dropouts of the Disk Trucker
Given the chaotic nature
of his workshop I was fully expecting it to be a couple of weeks before my
wheels were ready but within just two days Al called to say ‘laddie, yer wheels
er reddy’, when I arrived he went on to explain that I had double butted on the
rear with tandem spokes on one side to compensate for the strain of the disk
brake, single butted on the front…(beyond this I got lost in the technicalities
of his art), apparently I’d had a choice of silver or black spokes – as long as
I chose silver, he doesn’t use black ones as for reasons unknown these seem to
break more often than silver ones. A theory was postulated in the ensuing
conversation about the black ones being baked after the coating was applied and
in doing so annealing the metal thus making it more brittle – a sound theory
which I am happy to accept – the silver spokes look the part and my new wheels
look great. Al even offers a 200 mile tune up to his wheels to get them back in
perfect true once they have bedded in.
Thanks Big Al – brilliant
service, great banter, and more coffee than you can shake a mug at. Check out
his store here; http://www.wheelcraft.net/
