Hi Saytan,
what was the impetus you had to learn to build your own wheels, like are you from a family of wheel builders, just couldn't find a wheel that fitted your needs or it made good financial sense? . . I can true a wheel pretty good but haven't yet built my own, in theory it's doable but the whole subject of dishing throws a spanner in the works . . also knowing a decent wheel builder who charges around £30.00/wheel seems to stop me pushing forward myself as that seems not too much money and pays for his experience and equipment. I notice even the wheel-builders aren't safe from toy addition, high-end truing stands, spoke cutting machines etc . . . I love the idea you can make your own spokes.
So is Aero the main area of technological push at the moment? I'm thinking there must be other areas open to innovation otherwise in 100 years wheels will almost still be the same but just thinner?
I've been using Mavic Open Sports also, mainly because they come in silver but also they are very cost effective (around £20 in sale), unfortunately as my weight started creeping over 250lbs the rear 32x3 just couldn't take it and kept going out of true, eventually spokes started snapping which when you are miles out in the countryside is no laughing matter, one broken spoke effectively rendered my rear wheel unusable as the wheel just warped and jammed against the chain stay. On my older hybrid frame this wouldn't have been such an issue as the rear triangle was designed to accommodate very thick 48c tyres so would allow a wheel to continue spinning even when out of true but the geometry on a road frame which is expecting a maximum of 32c tires doesn't allow a wheel to work once it's out of true . .
I had the rear wheel rebuilt twice but the same thing kept happening, eventually I figured my load was too great and had a new rear wheel built using a 36-hole Mavic A319 with some monster Sapim strong spokes, it's been rolling for over 6 months and is still almost mint.
My wheel builder said Mavic Open Sports can be a bit hit and miss, a lot of the wheels he builds using this rim have no problems but he does get a few call-backs, mainly from the heavier riders like myself, I did try to look at the technical papers from Mavic but still don't have concrete figures of what "load" the various wheel can handle, I seem to remember it was in the region of 250lbs.
Another thing I discovered is that disk brakes put a strange torsion load on the side of the wheel where the rotor is, the Mavic Open-Sport/A319 are sold as rim brake rims so may not be ideal for a hulk using disk brakes, I couldn't find a disk break specific rim that was sold in Silver? . . . I don't understand why RIMs have such basic colour choices compared to hubs and spokes?
Anyways I wouldn't picking your brains about 700c disk break wheels, you mention you have built a fair few wheels so chances are not all of them were for rim brakes only.
In the wheel builders guide it says the spoke tension must be increased on the drive side, I'm assuming this is because the load of the gears but I've yet to hear about spoke tension adjustments for disk brake wheels, I'm sure the forces at play are stronger on the rotor side of the wheel.
You mentioned that if you look after a hub it will last many times the life of the rim but your talking about rim brakes yeah? . . . On a disk break wheel I have found it to be the other way round, I actually went through a couple of hubs as the spokes were ripping out the hub flanges and distorting the holes so effectively destroying the hub.
I suppose a properly specc'ed and built disk brake wheel could last a very long time as the rim will be untouched by anything apart from a little road spray and twigs.
The two year old 32x3 Mavic Open Sport front wheel is still working fine although it needs truing every 9 months, I'm thinking I may try out an Open-PRO next time I come to upgrade, any thoughts on the main difference between the sport and Pro (£20 vs £35/£40 quids).
I'm not sure I will be building wheels this year but I damn sure will start to carry spare spokes with me if cycling out into the wilderness, you never realise how bad a broken spoke can be until it happens, miles from home, knackered, cold and a cycle with a wheel that looks like a boomerang.
Look at this photo below, a Red Bus clipped me as I was cycling home from just having my cycle serviced, I walked away with a sore bottom and had to carry my cycle back to the shop. trashed my wheel and bent my alloy frame, total damage cost £300 thanks TFL!
Any tips for constructing a bus proof wheel!
