Savington

iTrader: (31)

The highlight of my Sunday group rides is asking everyone with a 520 whether they just KOM'd that segment every time their unit beeps.

afm

iTrader: (3)

Do the pluck test and make sure the tone is balanced among the half of the spokes on each side, or find a friend who plays an instrument if you feel you need a better ear. Or use a microphone and a scope

Highly recommend The Professional Guide to Wheelbuilding by Roger Musson. He runs through a lot of the caveats of workman-grade (Park) tensionometers in both attainable accuracy and precision. It's cheap at $10 or so and it's served me well through many builds.

TurboTim

iTrader: (9)

For me, it's nice to know if I'm beating my PR's during my ride instead of later, after the ride. It's quite easy to enable/disable all segments (or individual segments, but at that point, you should unstar them in strava and they will be deleted from your 520). It's also easy to only star those segments which matter to you.

doward

Scored some barely used Speedplay Zero Stainless from a local cycle fb page. $100. Score.

Ordered some Shimano shoes for a first fancy-shoe effort.
Product: Shimano SH-R107 Road Shoes

Mazdaspeeder

For Chinese carbon wheels, is it worth it to build them or do they come with decent hubs and stuff if I order a complete set. Still not sure on depth but if I went with a 40-50mm, what kind of weight can I expect from a budget wheel set like this?

I do want my bike to climb well, but I'll be removing wheels that weigh 1950g for the pair so basically any of these will be an upgrade. I've been itching to do something to the bike and I know wheels are a huge improvement, and can let me make better use of better tires down the road. Also the sub $400 price points are appealing and I know many of you guys have success with them.

Where to buy (besides lightbicycle though I know they let you really choose components which is nice) and what depth to go for if I want to climb well, but still be able to maintain a bit more speed on straights. I know the 88mm ones are overkill especially for an endurance fondo style bike, but can people recommend a good depth for all around use? Is 50mm going to be much different from say a 35?

I also hear rim brakes and carbon don't work well together all the time?
On another note I've lowered my stem and am getting more comfortable with bars 5mm below saddle. Unfortunately that's as low as I can go without a steeper drop stem.

emilio700

iTrader: (3)

Most China carbon wheelsets use Bitex hubs are optional DT Swiss. The Bitex hubs are good, the DT Swiss are among the very best. I just prefer to build my own but pre-built wheels are a good choice for the less picky.

Mazdaspeeder

Flyxii decent? I was looking at a saddle from them (save almost 200g there) and it was cheap enough to give it a try. They have 1450g 38mm deep wheel sets for 275 but doesn't say what hubs. Diy-bike is using novatec if that's any good

emilio700

iTrader: (3)

Novatec are also pretty good. Guys that run it are old business associate/friends of mine. I have a few sets built with various Bitex hubs, they're solid. The really nice OEM wheels on my Van Dessel are private label Bitex. The hubs that came on my Reynolds ATR ($$$) were rubbish. Mis-machined out of the box. Draggy, cheap bearings, crude freehub pawl design. Spoke son the ATR's also broke. Relaced with CX-Ray and replaced bearings with SS enduros. Lesson: Buy Reynolds rims and lace them yourself. The Bitex are a much better hub.

Mazdaspeeder

Thanks for the help. Now to decide on width and depth of the rim for a 25c tire. Any advantage to straight pull spokes?

Also does 1500g sound decent for a 38mm deep and 23mm wide wheel set using novatec hubs? I'm gonna chat with a few on a group ride tomorrow and see. The 25mm deep wheels definitely have a weight advantage, or maybe it's the light bicycle brand cause they're around 1300g a set

TurboTim

iTrader: (9)

Thanks to everyone's help here, I laced up my front wheel last night. Light bicycle 35mm U shape, 18 CXRay radial heads out cause it felt weird bending the spokes otherwise, BikeHubStore superlight wide hub, Zefal 13mm rim tape, amazon butyl tube, Specialized Turbo Pro 700x26. And some wheelsmith spokeprep I ended up around 110-130kgf. Factory spokes are around 140-160.

The wheel minus the rim tape is 604g (rim itself is 440g). All the above is .6 lbs lighter than the FRONT wheel/tire that's on my bike now: 2014 Fulcrum S5 (18 spoke 2.0mm straight gauge radial straight pull)/Specialized Turbo Elite 700x23. I'm not sure how much weight I will lose in the back because of the heavier powertap i'm going to use compared to the factory rear hub.

I ended up around 110-130kgf spoke tension. Factory spokes are around 140-160. With every spoke tensioned equally, the rim was shaped like a potato chip. It's amazing how much a quarter turn will do.

I went with the 35 over Emilio's recommended 55 because I wanted light weight and 80 grams is sooooooo much. Actually I just wanted the look of a smaller rim clincher. Light bicycle also has their 45mm U shaped also. My next set will be 55mm tubular.





The red paint is surprisingly heavy. I may remove that.

Rear starts tonight.

TurboTim

iTrader: (9)

Prime day deal. Buy this if you need a pump. I love it. JoeBlow 2 for $30.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002B7LTBY...E4P8V0KE3MFTCQ

hustler

iTrader: (6)

I kind of miss that bike, happy to see you properly using it.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Also, that bike will totally come alive with better wheels.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

This is going to happen:

TurboTim

iTrader: (9)

Please explain:
describe a better CX wheelset.
describe the changes that would occur due to such a wheelset.

These seem plenty stiff the bike in general is a heavy beast.

Re-truing both wheelsets you supplied me are on my to-do list now that I have the tools.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

OEM wheelset is probably ~2000g. Something like a $700 set of November Nimbus CLD (Pacenti SL25 hoops/White hubs/Sapim spokes) will be ~350g lighter and wider. Better acceleration, smoother ride, more grip from higher tire volume. In general, wheels are the single most noticeable thing you can upgrade on a bike. Most mid-level OEM builds will include a workable set with the assumption that the people who care will upgrade them anyway.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

I did 15 miles of single-track on a entry-level aluminum full suspension 29er yesterday (Santa Cruz Superlight) and I am blown away. It was my first time on a FS bike and I am shocked at how fast the thing was through bumpy, rocky terrain. My desire for a trail/enduro bike is at an all-time high.

dcamp2

iTrader: (4)

Nice...All the climbs out of Boulder are pretty awesome on a road bike. I did flagstaff drunk at night on a BMX bike in college. It's steep.
Do yourself a favor and go to Valmont bike park- they have a bunch of CX trails mixed through the park.


You'll be more blown away on something a little more modern. The superlight is pretty **** compared to the new stuff (flexy, poor pedaling, bad geometry)- I had a 26" wheeled superlight for a few years.

TurboTim

iTrader: (9)

Cool, thanks. So same reasons as a road bike. Wasn't sure if off road/cx/mountain bike wheels had different desirable characteristics to go after, such as F weight/gimmie stiffness, or something along those lines. Obviously you can't run 16x radial on a front with disc brakes though. One day may have a November wheelset.

I hope to do a full suspension MTN bike demo day sometime next month, really want to see what the fuss is all about. Until then, I sourced an inexpensive early 2000's hardtail frame that I'm going to swap my mountain bike parts onto. A coworker also gave me some similar era parts to use. My $200 dicks special FS bike frame is tired, but the components, while ancient, still 'work'. I'll give new life to them and an old spesh frame.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Full suspension is a gift from god.

I demo'd a top of the line santacruz downhill bike. I went from being an entry level mountain biker, to going off 5 foot drops like it was nothing.