greatwhite

I think we are on the same page with respect everything except the straight pull spokes. Apart from availability, what are the issues?

Thanks for the links and the thoughts1.was intending to build a new wheelset for training anyway. 2.good idea. Sort of what I had in mind. RE suggestion: the problem is that i currently only have one lamp to use on mtb and road bike and it gets moved around. My intention is to use the battery lamp for mtb and go with Dynamo/battery/lamp on the road bike as permanent fixture. It is a bit of an investment, but it would hopefully eliminate flat batteries and messing around moving/fitting lights all the time

Thanks for the pics. Nice setup. Getting support in the US for the Son hub, will be a lot easier than south Africa I guess?

HED rims - look nice, have a massive price though, it seems (can't find locally on the web, but internationally well over $100/rim) Hope hubs - knew someone would suggest them ☺

Never heard of H Plus Sons Archetype till now, but a Google search suggests it is quote similar to the Mavic CXP rims. What was considered a deep section aero wheel 20years ago... Worth keeping in mind Not sure about the am classic hubs. I recall seeing many reports on the web with rear hub failure How many km have you done on this wheels?

If you wanted to build a set of wheel that would last many tens of thousands of KM with minimal maintenance and was reasonable value for money, what rims, hubs, spoke etc would you use and why. This topic tends to be geared to the bigger people out there since the 60-70kg lightweights can ride 20 spoke race wheels and never get a fatigue crack in the rim or a broken spoke. For reference, my last 2 set of training wheels have been: 1. Shimano Dura Ace 7700 hubs with 32 DT Comp Spokes and Mavic Open PRO rims, then Shimano PRO R-50 rims on rebuild (very similar to the Open PRO Mavics) 2. Shimano Dura Ace 7800 hubs with 32 Front/36 Rear DT Comp Spokes and Shimano/PRO R-50 rims I all cases, the hubs have lasted well and the PRO R-50 rims, while a little heavier, haven't suffered the fatigue failure the Mavic rims did. The 36 spoke rear on the later set was to mitigate the rim fatigue issue further. I've had a few spoke failures too. This time round I thought I might consider thinking out of the box a bit more. Questions I'm asking are: 1. Are deeper rim sections worth it (a deeper rim by virtue of its greater vertical stiffness, there is less vertical flexing of the rim and therefore lower fatigue magnitude in the eyelet are and spoke) - thinking a DT 585 or mavic CXP or similar (open to suggestions). 2. If I went to a deeper section, the ride would be a little harsher. I could consider going to a slightly thinner centre section on the spoke e.g. an Alpina Ø1.7mm vs the DT which is Ø1.8. This would increase the compliance a bit and again reduce fatigue at the eyelet and J bend, but sacrifice a little lateral stability/stiffness. 3. Do I go for straigthpull spokes which almost completely eliminates spoke head failure 4. What sort of life have people had out hubs with cartridge bearing (if you look after a DA hub, I guess you could get 30-50k km out of it, but when its bearing are done, you throw away and they are expensive) 5. Since it is training wheel - should I fit a Dynamo Hub (see here) I'd be interested to hear peoples thoughts and what products they recommend and why.....

If they didn't munch your tyres and had similar efficiency to the hub units I might consider it. As a kid, I remember those things being much more prevelent

The Germans are IMO unquestionably the most jacked up when it comes to Dynamos and Lights that run off them. They have a number of product on the market which have USB ports. That was part of my plan as well was to use USB charger. The (supposedly) best hubs are the SON (German) hub, but they are hugely expensive. There is also the SP-Dynamo units which are also supposedly quite good but still steep on price. The only gripe I have with either of those over the obvious high price is that you have to strip the wheel to service them (incl a bearing change, as I understand it). The unit I am inclined to use is the cheaper Shimano DH-3N80 - which has the same bearing/cup and seal grade as the Dura Ace/XTR hubs. The Shimano has the advantage tha you can strip the hub without stripping the wheel.

When you say built a good one, do you mean he build the hub himself or he built a good hub into a wheel? Maybe you could ask your brother in law to post his experience here?

To be honest, I had never even considered foam age as an issue. My problem tends to be something has worn out - usually the pads, then you can't get spares as the helmet is no longer a current model. I buys spare pads at around the time of purchase now.

Hi All, I'm looking at building up a new set of road wheels for training and was looking at the option of a Dynamo hub for the front wheel, for those early morning training sessions, so that having to remember to charge the battery for the light becomes a thing of the past. Has anyone done something similar? If so what are your thoughts and experience in this regard? Did a anyone consider it and dismiss it - if so, why?

Just to add, I would agree with David wrt round spokes. The CXray is a waste of money on an mtb wheel. Not only for the reasons he mentioned, but also an mtb tyre and rim are an aerodynamic disaster area, then just for good measure, you are probably only doing half the speed you would on a road bike, so any potential aero saving would a quarter of what is left.

The rim doesn't actually spread the load to local supports (spokes), it does the opposite and unloads them. the load will increase marginally in the spokes away from this area as the rim deflects. I agree that with a more rigid rim a lower spoke count may be employed. The reason for employing butted spokes (apart from weight saving) is to allow greater elasticity of the narrower mid section. This in turn reduces the stress variation in the fatigue sensitive zones of the spoke. In short, the dynamic stress amplitude is different. Employing this logic only, thinner spoke midsections would by the way to go, to maximise wheel longevity. However, the greater the rigidity of the rim the less this is an issue, since the rim deflects less each time I'd goes round or takes a knock and therefore the amplitude of the fatigue inducing load variation on the spoke is reduced. The only time a spoke should go past yield is when the wheel builder is 'stress relieving' the j-bends. Obviously, you don't want to go to UTS. You should be more interested in the cyclic fatigue characteristics of the material, but I don't ever recall a spoke manufacturer publishing that kind of info. Above said, you have clearly considered your choices logically, but some thoughts you might want to add to your equation: 1. Have you considered straight pull spokes/hubs. This largely eliminates the fatigue problem as the j-bend is eliminated (most spokes fail at the bend). Your DT240 is available in a 28 hold straight pull. 2. Have you considered Lateral rigidity and directness of control? Especially on a 28 spoke build, there is going to be alot of flex between hub and rim of you use 1.5mm spokes. To be fair, in case I am biased, I should also mention that I am using 28 hole syncros hubs (rebadged DT 350 hubs) with 2/1.8/2 DT competition straight pull hub and carbon rims with 25mm inside width - as an XCM wheelset, I'm very happy. With the original DT xr331 alloy rims and aerocomp spokes the wheel were squirelly.

So you have never told someone "go to xyz store instead, they are cheaper" or had someone say something similar to you? Blind acceptance that the 'price is what the price is', and 'take it or leave it' is not a good idea. IMO, we, as country have a problem just accepting things instead of questioning and then trying to do something about it Anyway, the OP was also asking if others were able to give reasons why?

I agree with you mate. I feel there are many events out there that are over priced - I don't see value, so I don't participate. The ones that slay me are some of the multi day events, most notably the cape epic - R67900 for 2017. However, as long as enough people keep on paying what event organizers charge, event organizers will keep in charging it.

If be interested to hear how you apply a loss lead to race event organization that makes any business sense? I can only see it making sense from a point of view that having more events and therefore more turnover helps deal with fixed costs (rent, salaries etc).

Agreed, in the case of some event holder. Having said that, ASG arrange quite a number of events a year and wouldn't still be going of they weren't turning a profit. My guess is in ASGs case is they do fairly well. They market reasonably well and have a good feel for just how hard they can squeeze people on race entries to maximize profit. The OP and this thread being a case in point - some feel it is too much, but they will probably have enough entries to make a profit.

I'm in the engineering game - if I was making 1000s, I could make for a LOT less than R300. For a 1 off, however, better to pay the R300 - I doubt anyone would bite. For a DIY project, though, it really is quite simple (as long as you have grinder, welder, paint....). Good Luck

That information is already publicly available, little point in making a fuss - if you haven't already, you should consider alerting your client instead - will strengthen your relationship with them and give them a chance to clear things up. I know they are legit having dealt with them on more than 1 occasion, but there are a lot here who are sceptics.

I've bought from them a few times. Their services is actually quite good. They even follow with an email to to see if you are happy wit the product. That said, I suspect they got the crank price in the OP wrong. But I suspect very few people can say they never made a mistake.

Depends on the bike - a lot of current bikes you can often sell for near the sum of the parts, but if you have a mismatched or older bike, it often pays to split the parts. I've just split up my old MTB. From comparison on the hub I estimated I could get R6k. Split up I could get over 10k. So far I have sold most of the bits and got just short of 5k, but still have to sell, wheels, brakes and frame. At this point my estimates on parts appear a little optimistic, but I should get R9k, so for a few hours stripping and cleaning and posting ads, R3k is a reasonable return (remembering you are likely to clean and service the bike anyway and in the OPs case the bike is already stripped - double bonus). If you are unsure, do yourself a spreadsheet of all the part and what you can realistically get for them and compare it to what you think you can get built up - 20 min work. The key is to try to look at it from the typical buyers perspective and see what value they will perceive. Good Luck

Best answer I can give: You're wasting your time:- You adding mass to your bike (not much, but still there) The parts cost more Scaling proportionally, If 100kg guys need Ø203 then a 65kg guy could use Ø160. For you, even Ø180 could be considered overkill for XC. Ø203 would a like bringing a nuclear bomb to knife fight - just a touch overkill IMO, the only thing you will improve is your ability to launch over the bars.

I agree with the mechanic of all the stuff you say and also add that larger diameter wheels also result in more acute angles between the spokes on the two sides of the wheel when using the same hub, which also result in reduced lateral stiffness. That said, you quite often see (and can feel) lateral movement on low spoke count wheels - you do see wheels catching brake blocks on out of saddle efforts. I stress this is low spoke count and by that I mean typically 24 and under (although your example with 1.5mm centre section with 28 spokes on a 29er would also be pretty horrid)

Just to clarify, Butted one side and non butted the other side is less of an issue, but don't mix on one side. But as wyatt said - if you can rather go butted both side. You sacrifice a little lateral stiffness, but durability is massively improved.

Theoretically mixing butted and non butted spokes should be avoided as the amount the spoke stretches per unit load is different. That said, the difference will be small and I'm not sure how much it will be an issue practically.