Shine

Building another wheel. I found the front wheel I was using on my Seven road/cross/road thing was, lets say, less than smooth. the bearings were gubbed, and the axle was bent. Yep, bent. Anyone bent a front axle recently? weird. It was a deore hub, so no great loss.

I decided to build a lighter/better wheel for replacing it, and thanks to dave at Alpine Bikes, I picked up a DT RR 1.1 single eyelet front rim, and a DT 340 road front hub. Together with comp spokes and steel nips this should be a long lasting tough wheel.










The rim has been interesting to build with. I haven't built many wheels that have had anything other than mavic rims and there does seem to be differences in building 'experience'. How this translates into feel whilst riding and or durability I have yet to see.

So far the salsa delgado disc are holding up well, and the 29mm width is so good, allowing super floatation and low pressure. They were pretty malleable to build with which was quite nice, as they didn't seem to spring out of true when approaching final tweaks. The DT, somewhere inbetween I'd say.










I do have a dream wheel in me somewhere, and that is a DT 190 ceramic centreloc front with comps to a delgado with alloy nips. I know I can do it, and make it strong, but the consequences of screwing it up would be pretty har$h...