Wheelbuilding / Wheel Building / Wheel build help

Nope its not wrong 1x would work well too perhaps better. With 32h radial is not ideal anyway. Crossing spokes on a front wheel does not make it stronger but it does reduces the loads on the hub flanges which is handy when the spoke holes are close togheter

It depends on the bead to bead distance for the tyre. Some 23mm tyres are not really 23mm are they. I personally like tyres that bulge a bit. That protects the rim and its more like the tyre shape the manufacturer intended. Tyres that are over stretched do feel a bit more skittish. A bit of sidewall flex is desirable.

The first time i used a 25m gp5000 tyre i fitted them to 20mm internal width ailerons and the centre of the thread wore thinner than the shoulders when i pulled it off after holed.

I am quite picky with tyres.

the centre of the thread wore thinner than the shoulders

If you're not slaloming down the road all the time, the centre always wears through long before the shoulders.

This is good to hear. Just put a set of 25c GP5000’s onto some Belgium Plus rims as Schwalbe One 28’s didn’t like the fork clearance. Schwalbe Pro One 28’s work fine on my other wheels & id wrongly assumed that wider rim would increase width & reduce the height of a tyre

Particularly true on LFGSS, where we don’t lean

Good to know! I hear you’re the go-to supplier for these.

This was more than i have seen before. Also explained why i was getting so many centre tread punctures. Since it since but not with narrower rims and it does not have to be much narrower.

This was with Pro One 23s, which in my experience tend to be pretty true to size, until Contis which tend to be a bit larger. There's too many variables for anecdata to be terribly reliable though.

2x will result in a wheel which is slightly less stiff laterally, but which will make life easier for the hub flanges as there will be more material along the load path from the spoke hole to the edge of the hub flange. I suspect that in all likelihood the difference between 1x and 2x in that context would be far less significant than other factors, such as component choices and build quality.

And the sick skids, don’t forget those.

The old pro one 23mm would be 26 or 27mm wide on a hed rim. They were enormous tyres.

So... HED aside, given the Aileron is 20mm internal, what recommendations do you have for more readily available 20mm internal disc rim?

DtSwiss R470db? Hope 20FIVE ? What else would you list alongside those?

Does it have to be 20mm internal? The Kinlin XRxxT rims are 19mm internal, and there's little not to like about them. The XR31T is pretty much my default choice for alloy rims. I only get other rims due to feeling perverse/wanting a change/crazy bargainz.

R470db that cheap disc rim. Decent though.
Mavic open pro ust would work well.

The dt swiss rr421 and rr521 are options as well. You need a symmetric rim.

Easton r90sl rims are very nice too.

No it doesn’t have to be 20mm. I just realised as well the archetypes/sl23 are substantially narrower at 17.5. I’ll look at your suggestions thanks.

The sl23 was a shit rim and it was for rim brakes you seem to be after disc brake rims. The sl23 was 18.5mm internal width. The sl25 was the disc brake effort that also cracked given time.

I've got a few wheelsets built with Archtype rims. Nothing wrong with them, but the Kinlin XRs are better IMO, except for the more limited range of finishes. There's also the Ambrosio P20s. Some people have had issues with them, although in my experience they're fine if not as well finished or round/true as the Kinlins. However, I think they've been discontinued, so Kinlin it is.

I think they've been discontinued

Spa still have selected variants, some very advantageously priced

So to summarise the best of your suggestions seem to be

£££ Easton R90SL - 19.5mm
££ DT Swiss RR521db - 20mm
£ Kinlin XT**T -19mm

Compared to (slightly narrower) options from a few years ago for my own reference

But I certainly appreciate that 2mm in the wheel building world is a big difference

Are you using rim brakes or discs/track-no-brakes? The RR512DB is a disc-only rim so can't be used with rim brakes as it doesn't have a braking surface.

Thanks for the information @thecycleclinic @Brommers. Also I should mention that these front wheels have disc brakes (4 pot calipers and 203mm rotors). It would seem a bit mad to lace radially but does it still not matter that much?

Matters with discs, 2x should be fine though, one of the spoke calcs will draw you a pretty picture if you're worried about angles and that.

I’m after some hub advice please.

I’ve ordered some carbon rims from Light Bicycle which I’ll be looking to build up.

First are a pair of 24h/55mm rim brake rims.
These will be a second set of wheels (my every days are XR31’s to DA 9000 road hubs) and for dry miles only. I’d normally go for Hope RS4, but as these won’t be used all the time and never in bad weather, I’m thinking of saving some money and going for something like Bitex. Any first hand experience of these or recommendations for something at a similar price point?

Secondly is a disc version of the same rim that will be built onto a fixed hub. Again 24h. The only slight complication is that I’ll run this rear with the front discussed above, so in a dream world this fixed hub would be from the same manufacturer and look similar to the front too.

Hope that makes sense and thanks in advance.

These will be a second set of wheels (my every days are XR31’s to DA 9000 road hubs) and for dry miles only. I’d normally go for Hope RS4, but as these won’t be used all the time and never in bad weather, I’m thinking of saving some money and going for something like Bitex. Any first hand experience of these or recommendations for something at a similar price point?

Novatec would be the obvious alternative, but my experiences of Bitex have been positive to date. Like the Novatec hubs they just tend to work, but the bearings fitted as standard can be a bit short-lived. The Bitex RAR9/RAF10 is the classis budget weight-weeny combo, but unless you really want to save the grams I recommend going for a RAR12 front hub instead. The bearings on the RAF10 really are tiny, whereas the RAF12 uses 6900 bearings. You could also go for the slightly heavier RAR12 rear, which has two of its bearings in a larger size than the RAR9, but I've found the RAR9 pretty durable.

Secondly is a disc version of the same rim that will be built onto a fixed hub. Again 24h. The only slight complication is that I’ll run this rear with the front discussed above, so in a dream world this fixed hub would be from the same manufacturer and look similar to the front too.

I've got one wheelset with Light Bicycle rims using BX312F and BX312R hubs on my Lynskey and I really like them. They're for straight pull spokes though. The BX106F/R hubs would look closer to the RAF/RAR rims brake hubs, assuming you're using centrelock discs.