Wheels!

My new wheels have come in straight from the factory!!! To be more specific, my living room. I've been building wheels for some time now but I am now branching out and take a plunge into the world of commercial custom wheelbuilding. What can I offer that all those other custom wheelbuilders offer? Well to be honest, not much more than the other guy can. We are all going to have similar build qualities, prices and weights considering most of us buy our supplies from the same people. However, I am your LOCAL custom wheelbuilder, you race with me, you know me.

Anyway, to the good stuff. Pictured below is the newest of my builds. The rim is a KinLin TB-25. KinLin is the company behind many other rebranded rims, most notably IRD. If you haven't figured it out, TB stands for tubular and 25 is the depth in millimeters. Hole count for this build is 20.

The hub is a new one which you may not have heard about. It is from a company named Alchemy Bicycle Works. Alchemy is a custom wheel parts wholesaler as well as a manufacturer of two hubs, the Front ELF (Extra Light Front) and the Rear ORC. The ELF hub weighs a scant 64g but one of the toughest and stiffest hub out there. The flanges are put out as far as possible, any wider and the flanges and spokes would hit the inside of the fork leg! On top of that, it uses a large 6900 ceramic bearing. Its light, but also strong.

Spokes are pretty standard affair, Wheelsmith DB14 spokes with their Aluminum nipples (purple anodized of course). I typically only recommend aluminum nipples on front and rear non-drive side road wheels. Brass on the drive sides and all around for mountain bike wheels. I could have built these wheels with nicer Sapim CX-Rays or DT Swiss Aerolites but considering I am using these wheels for Cyclocross, the added cost for marginal aerodynamics wasn't worth it. Also its a lot cheaper to replace spokes should I ever break one.

The wheel is laced radially, trued, stressed and tensioned. The weight comes in at 600g. That is 45g less than a Mavic Ksyrium SL front wheel and at substantial cost savings! 20 holes sound a little sketch for cyclocross? Last year I ran the same build except with DT Swiss 240s hubs and they were rock solid. I did not have to touch the spoke wrench to the wheel all season. They will be back in action this year.

Also coming soon is an EDGE composites 1.68 wheelset laced to Alchemy ELF and ORC hubs for my sponsored rider. How about a EDGE 45mm clincher that weighs less than 1300g!? Exciting things are happening and stay tuned