An introduction to custom wheels, Part.1: Hubs and Rims
So you just picked up a new frame or maybe just want a “refresh” for your ride. Buying a pair of new wheels can be an absolute mad adventure. Price range can literally range form a hundred to a few thousands euros/dollars. So where do you start?
Today we’ll dive into the absolute money pit of custom wheel building. You can build them yourself if you know how to (more on that later) or just take the easy route and use this guide to choose your parts and ask someone with the tools , experience and skills to build them for you. As for me , I’m far from an expert at wheel building, but I learned a lot from having worked in a bike shop. I’ve since built my own wheels and some for my friends. I also believe it’s quite a relaxing exercise and the satisfaction you get at the end is just brilliant!
You might be asking yourself now: Where do I start ? Well, knowing that a fixed gear wheelset is composed of only a few parts 2 rims, 2 hubs, some spokes, a cog and a lockring (of course tires too, but we’ll discuss that another time) - you just need to know what you’re gonna use them for. Want to go fast with something light and easy to spin or maybe an ultra durable pair that can go anywhere with no fear of hopping big gaps on a regular basis?
Hubs and Rims
Let’s talk hubs for a sec. Let’s discuss why you want to stay away from a €30 Novatec hub, but also why you probably don’t need a €600 ceramic bearings, titanium bolts and lockring, PhilWood Pro hub. They both do the exact same job but if you go with the cheapest options you’ll probably end up having to do a lot of maintenance and tweaking to make it run smoothly for a while. They are not by any means “bad”, but you can definitely find better options if your budget allows for it. I recently used a pair of Novatec hubs for an “ultra budget tracklocross wheelset” and they will work just fine as long as I maintain them correctly. For our fellow Europeans, there are two minor brands that I would recommend at the moment. Mental BMX is a Latvia based brand that makes really nice hubs. Japanese precision bearings, CNC-machined aluminium body and stainless steel cones! If these don't already sound tasty to you, they will when you know that you can have a pair for under €150. In the same price range you can also go with Ukraine-based Harmony lab who makes mixed carbon aluminium hubs. He doesn’t have a website but communication via his Instagram is pretty easy, his products are super light and he will do any drilling and anodization you desire. And bonus points to the kind of people who're always trying to make better products.
Mack Superlight is also a good option!
For the rims you have two options. On the one hand, you can choose a set of aluminium hoops which are cheap, durable and widely available such as DT Swiss, Velocity and H Plus Son. On the other hand, you can also head down the dangerous path of carbon rims. Good quality ones are difficult to find for a reasonable price since most manufacturers will only sell them as a complete wheelset. You can find Chinese rims for a cheaper price, but you’ll need to be ready to play the carbon lottery. Will they last? Maybe not...who knows. The fact that most of them are as heavy as a mid-range aluminium rim is one more reason for me to say: Stay away! Carbon is cool, but if you go with carbon rims you should buy the good ones! If you absolutely want a carbon pair for weight benefit, I would just look for a used road set of wheels and relace them to track hubs.
Hole Count and Inner Width
Going a little bit more into details, let’s see what other factors you need to take into consideration before pulling the trigger. The number of spokes you decide to use is quite important. More spokes equals a little more weight but also a way stronger wheel which is more resistant to deforming. For normal usage, I wouldn’t go lower than 24 spokes for a rear wheel, but if you plan on doing anything that could exert more stress on the rims, I would go for 28 or 32 spokes(even 36 if you’re into serious tricks). From my point of view, 28 is the best looking one but I feel most hubs and rims are easier to find in the 32 hole variant. Last point we're gonna tackle in this post is rim width, especially the internal one. The wider your rim, the bigger the tire you’ll be able to fit. A good rule of thumb is to multiply your internal rim width by 1.5 to know what tire size will work best with your rim. Here is an example: The H Plus Son Archetype has a 17mm inner width: 17 x 1.5= 25.5 You can see that the “optimal” size would be a 25mm tire but we can always stretch that to one size up and one size down. So let’s say 23, 25 and 28mm work best with the Archetype. This is just an easy to remember rule so don’t take it too seriously as I’ve seen people fit 42c tires on them.
We’ll look a little bit more into actual spokes and building techniques in part 2. But in the meantime, here is a list of easy wheelsets options for different budgets and uses. (For now I’ll just use regular 2mm spokes and brass nipples for price reference since we’ll talk more about this in part 2)
It ain’t much but it’s mine! build: DT Swiss R 500 rims (€70)+ Novatec hubs (€60)+ spokes and nipples (€55)=€250
Gotta live the hype… build: H Plus Son Archetype rims(€150)+ MentalBMX track hubs(€110)+spokes and nipples (€55) = €315
Balls to the walls this is how we do it son! build: Velocity Aileron rims(€230) + Phil Wood Low flange hubs(€375) + spokes and nipples (€55) = €660
See you for part 2!
