It’s been a while since I posted, but I have been away from the bike for so long, that it really didn’t seem a priority. I have finally started training again and hope to gain enough fitness before cyclo-cross season starts September 17th.
As a motivator, I decided to build up a second set of carbon tubular wheels for the upcoming season. Since I use Zipp 404 tubulars for my primary racing wheelset, I prefer Zipp Tangente Cork brakepads to help slow me down. It is a pain to switch brakepads anytime you want to roll aluminum rims, so in all my infinite wisdom, I decided it would be easier to just build a backup set of carbon tubular wheels. Not a lot of sensible logic there, but I had a set of my favorite DT 240S hubs that needed to be built. The front is a 20 hole 240S radial hub and the rear is a 24 hole Ritchey design with oversized flanges and 240 internals and cassette body, that DT built for them. I would have liked to build the front with a 24 hole as well, but I would have had to purchase a new hub (remember this is a budget build). I sourced the rims from offthefrontracingsystems.com . They are 50mm Asian made carbon tubular rims. There are so many different Asian carbon rims now, that I thought I would let someone else do the research for me and I didn’t have to wait a month to get them. They cost a little more since I didn’t buy them direct from Asia, but I thought it was worth the extra cost to have the option to return them if they were not what I expected. I decided to build them with black DT Revolution spokes and black aluminum Sapim nipples. I have had great success with Revolution spokes in the past and they are only $1 each versus the $3.50 each they get for the DT Aerolite or Sapim CX-Ray spokes.
I have built a few sets of wheels in the past, but this is my first set of carbon hoops. I laced the front up radially and the back is 2 cross non-drive side and crow’s foot drive side lacing. Crow’s foot, you might ask? Well, I wanted to make sure the rear wheel would be nice and strong for cross, so I did a little research on the internet and found an interesting article on Crow’s foot lacing (http://spokeanwheel.110mb.com/lacingcf.htm). So, I decided to give it a shot. Both wheels trued up nice and round with equal spoke tension all around.
I thought I should include some details about the wheel components. Through a little research, I found out the carbon hoops are manufactured by Xiamen Sonata Composites Technology Co. and came in at around 380 grams each, so not super light, but not boat anchors either. They are about what I expected quality wise, with a 3k weave, matte finish and machined braking surface. Definitely not in league with Zipp rims, but they were about $600 cheaper each than the price of individual Zipp rims. We’ll see how they hold up to the rigors of cyclo-cross. The front DT 240S hub weighs in at 105 grams and the rear DT/Ritchey hub weighed in at 238 grams. Spokes and nipples for the front came in at 99 grams, while the rear total came in at 126 grams. I’ll save you doing the math, the front wheel weighs 584 grams and the rear weighs 744 grams. Now I have a 1328 gram wheelset to put to the test for the upcoming cross season. I’ll be finishing them off with a 10 speed Campagnolo Record 12/25 cassette, Turner TI Skewers and a pair of Vittoria Cross EVO-XM-II 32 tubular tires.
