Cannondale CAAD5 slammed: Rim brakes and alloy frames aren't dead!

Going to look, and I think ride, even better with those new hoops. Lovely bike

Excited to see the results!!!

Also excited on some EE feedback

Re rims: I ran 62mm before I switched to 50mm rims and the later is much more handsome.

Besides the wind, its also pretty convenient that you can use any 60mm valve tube (provided that you use tubes.

At least in germany 80mm are often sold out during season. Plus, when you catch a (second) flat, people rarely carry 80mm

the new wheelset is gonna look ACE. A friend has the same 808 rims and he described them as "commuter-friendly", wich is a bit of a stretch eh. are you going for bladed spokes?

This is the thinking behind the wheel build

Aims & objectives

• Weight reduction, but not weight weenie territory. I want something reasonably durable
  
• Less affected by crosswinds, the 808’s are too deep for me
  
• Wider internal width and tubeless compatibility
  
  

Lacing pattern:
I love the classic look of rim brake wheels, low spoke counts and radial fronts, kind of the pinnacle of lightweight racing wheels before discs came along. So want to build in this vein. One of the issues though that you started to see at the end of this era was that the advent of 11sp cassettes meant you ended up with a lot of dish (and therefore spoke tension difference) between drive side and non-drive side spokes. This was more of an issue with 130mm spaced rim brake rear wheels which can work out with the NDS spokes being around 40-50% of the DS spokes, the result being higher likelihood of loose NDS spokes over time. This is less of an issue with 135/142mm spaced wheels which can sit around 55-65% difference.

So down the rabbit hole I went and there are only a few ways to improve this situation, asymmetric rims which have an offset bed or to go with 2:1 spoke lacing. Asymmetric rims are not typically available with carbon rims so they are automatically ruled out. This left me with 2:1 lacing, for those who don’t know it involves having double the amount of spokes on the drive side compared to the non-drive side, this has the effect of giving you much more even tension. In this case 130mm spacing with a 24h rear wheel (16:8 DS to NDS spokes) it would be about 80% which is pretty good. Also I wanted to try it for the challenge and it looks cool

Looks like this

However the spoke length calculation is not particularly straightforward, especially on the drive side spokes. As effectively there are 16 drive side spokes (like half a 32 spoke) but you are trying to fit it into a 24 hole rim and not evenly spaced…. So anyone who wants to know more about this read here:
https://spokecalc.io/two-to-one-lacing-pattern.php

You have to apply a correction factor basically to the crossing number, I chose to go with 2 cross on the rear drive side as it meant a very close spoke length DS/NDS and also slightly shorter spokes, they are almost near tangential in any case.

Front wheel lacing is just plain old radial, symmetrical so nothing really to talk about here

Front Hub:

Bitex RAF13 20h Radial lacing. Bitex has quite a lot of front hubs with most builds going with the RAF 12 (bigger bearings more durable and heavier) or the RAF10 (tiny bearings 688 x4 of them) for weight weenie builds. I found the RAF13 on Aliexpress, as it has the more aero narrower flange width of the RAF10 but with 2x 699 bearings. Marginally heavier, similar aero but probably less bearing drag as there are half of them.

Rear Hub:

Bitex RAR9 rear 24h (2:1 lacing). This is the lightest hub that Bitex makes for rim brakes, at <200g, great value and has a good reputation. Bearings are not weird uncommon ones as it uses the standard 6802 x 4.

Rims:
Light Bicycle AR56mm, graphene brake tracks. 20h front, and 24h rear (drilled for 2:1 lacing). I found the old Zipp 808’s too deep for general riding, having nearly crashed once or twice due to a cross wind. Also due to their vintage they were not tubeless compatible and were a narrow 16mm internally, 25mm GP5000’s measured 23mm on these. I decided on the AR56 as they are still quite light but decently deep and won’t catch too much wind.
Profile

Spokes & Nipples:
Sapim CX-Ray black & Sapim double square brass nipples. These nipples are longer on the inside which gives it more thread purchase on the spokes and also has the advantage of being able to be fully tensioned from the inside of the rim. I don’t particularly like alloy nipples as I don’t think the weight saving is worth the reducing in durability, strength and resistance to corrosion. CX-Rays don’t need much explanation, they are the gold standard and managed to get them for not too much £££

Yep eager to try these out, to be clear these are not the genuine ones. I've never tried the genuine ones to compare but will have to judge them against mainstream caliper brakes.

Ok, so spokes have arrived and I decided to build the rear wheel first as I was quite eager to build it. So I started from the drive side and aligned the spoke holes in the 2:1 drilled rim with the hub, all the spokes were laced. I then turned my attention to the NDS and then suddenly realised that the spoke holes were out by 1 hole...

Because the NDS only has 8 radial spokes and the DS has 16 in 2X, it will only work when the spokes are aligned in every second rotation of the drive side if that makes sense... so I had to unlace the wheel again. This wasn't helped by the fact that I managed to drop about 5 nipples inside the rim in the process, they weren't so easy to fish out as they are slightly longer than normal.

Anyway, I relaced the rim correctly this time, slowly building up the tension on the wheels. Every time I build a set of wheels I'm always a bit nervous that the spoke length is incorrect and the spokes will either be too short or long. Thankfully this didn't happen and I managed to get a nice 110-120kgf on the drive side and a 80-90kgf on the non-drive side. Really strange to see such even tension on such a heavily dished wheel. Side to side truing was not that difficult as the rim is really stiff in both directions.

I went for a matte black finish on the rims and put some glossy decals on the rims for as stealth look.


The front wheel, was comparatively easy and straightforward, 20 radial spokes and they just went in fine.

The calculated target weight for the Wheelset was about 1460g and came to 1466 in reality, the tape added about 28 grams probably as it was double layered on both. Not too shabby for a 56mm deep build with brass nipples.

the wheels turned out super nice ! I'm a brass nipple fan, less corrosion, esp. with the carbon rims.

Every time I build a set of wheels I'm always a bit nervous that the spoke length is incorrect and the spokes will either be too short or long

I know this feeling too well... And you only find out when the wheel is nearly finished...

They look great! I’d take the slight weight penalty of brass nipples over worrying about corrosion on alloy ones every time

Looks quite different now! Overall weight is about 7.6-7.7kg with pedals, bottle cages, computer mount and power meter.

The 25mm GP5000 I had before measured 23mm on the old Zipp 808's (there were 16mm internal) but now they come out at 27.5mm or so... massive difference in ride feel. Still running it with tubes as well. They are near flush with the outside of the rim, although I think 28's might just fit, they might balloon out to 29mm though on these rims.

The aliexpress G4 EEBrakes actually are pretty good on initial impressions, fiddly to setup as I had to swap from compressionless housing to link housing. The compressionless housing is waaay too stiff to allow this to work, especially on the front which has a very short run due to the slammed front. Braking is surprisingly good with the LB graphene surface rims and the LB brake pads. I'd say at least in the dry they are on par with alloys and make the cool turbine winding down whistle as you brake...

The RAF13 hub also looks noticeably trick as it is narrower than normal hubs, in theory this should be more aero :D

Looks wwway better. Great work, amazing.

Blue pads matching the decals is a bonus.

Can’t make it out but what are those bottle cages??

They are alloy ones from Aliexpress, I realised quickly I don't like carbon cages as you can't bend them to get a tight fit on bottles. These ones are pretty close to carbon weight at 19g or thereabouts

https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005004921535489.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.29.e30a1802Qi9bm6&gatewayAdapt=glo2vnm

Cool thank you. Your build makes my six13 look a bit tame.

this really makes me want to build a cool 2000s/10s rim brake fast biek

looks great

Awesome! Great work

Absolutely nailed it, hope it rides as good as it looks.

Banger

I miss the shouty logos but they are nice, and i like the ‘solid’ crankset look with the depth of the rims and black tyres

I think I remember really liking the red one with the Zipp wheels - this one is also looking nice and aggressive! Great bike

This is great. Old CAADs are so rad.

Blue pads matching the decals is a bonus.

THIS

and this

Old CAADs are so rad.

So good. New wheels have transformed this.

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Slight update, changed the stem back to a -8º as the -17º was just a bit excessive. Also swapped out the Light Bicycle pads for some Campagnolo Red pads... massive difference. I rode the LB ones for a while and was never really impressed with their bite. Rode them through a downpour and they didn't feel much different when wet to be honest and cleared water quickly. However the Campag pads have significantly more bite, slightly noisier but I do love that turbine winding down sound you get from carbon clinchers...

Also I took some time to take some better photos...