Polo Wheels (Tyres, Spokes & Rims)

Vaidas is amazing at wheel building (wouldn't have been Arunas anyway). He built Daves as well as all mine.
Mention that I recommended you to him if the lhbpa doesn't fly.

Joe - I'll take the corex, will pm you when I'm home

Hey,

I'm just curious if anyone has an experience with the schwalbe kojak tire.I just can't decide between the 1,35 kojaks and durano in the same size as some people say that the kojak sticks too much to the ground thus handling/turning with it is unusual.Verdict?

Doesn't seem to be a problem for me, I'm running 2.0's though.

I run Duranos purely for the puncture protection.

Panaracer Ribmo FTW!

In my experience there is no noticeable difference

Whichever is cheapest. Sometimes planet x cycles have them for £10 each.

Thanks!

I had my mavic ex721 rim and sapim strong spokes replaced with a salsa delgado race with plain gauge DT's, played yesterday at the halloween tournament with it, I was surprised at how a small difference in weight made such a big difference on the court so big thumbs up to that combo.

lee built the wheel (gettin wild) and made a comment about how cheesy it felt when building, despite correct spoke tension, so we'll see how long it lasts.

so, anyone want to buy for a great price an ex721 in black (bit wobbly) with 36 sapim strong spokes/brass nipples sized to suit a hope pro 2?

^how much?

25 quid all in? bearing in mind the spokes aren't perfect (but perfectly serviceable) and the rim is a bit scratched and wobbly but is fine once tensioned. i'll deliver to a league game next time i'm in town.

was it from a front or rear (spoke length would be different right)?

If front, i'll take it

nope, it was on the rear originally. the spokes are 256mm long. I have 33 brand new plain gauge DT spokes as well which are 260mm (if that helps?), i'll do those plus rim and nipples for 30£?

hmm, ok deal. You're on Brendan's team right? Can grab them off you when we (Julia's team) play you guys

thats for the DT spokes or the Sapims? no problem either way, i'll bring down when we play.

Sapim strongs please

cool.

Why plain gauge DT's? I can't remember where I saw it but while looking for spokes I found a thing saying that butted spokes are stronger. This is why I chose DT alpine 3's. A month of use and all is good.

I think the theory is that although butted make a stronger wheel as they can flex better, straight gage or the sapim strongs will take a hit from a ball better. I've run butted spoke for ages and have only broken one from getting a pedal caught in the wheel, probably would of broken any other spoke too. Keeping things tensioned properly is probably more important.

^^ in my experience, plain gauge don't break, butted spokes do. the sapim's are even better, but cost more, are a bit heavier and you might have to modify the hub spoke holes to make fit (pro2's are OK but other hubs..?).

Butted spokes are stronger for an intended spokes purpose.

Obviously with polo there are side impacts etc. rather than just additional torsional stress (which touring and MTB spokes are made for- sometimes even quadruple butting!). So Types' experience might go some way to disproving the old adage that butted spokes are stronger.

**ANYWAY: **I'm just here to let everyone know how I'm getting on with my wheelbuild which was a bit of an experiment in nipples.

Firstly, EX 819's (36h) are brilliant rims, I don't rock wheelcovers and have had more than 4 spoke-deaths (well, nip-deaths - more on that below) and the rim has gone max 3mm out of tru.

Frankly I'm amazed in the improvement over the rims I used before, which needed truing after every polo session whether there were spoke/nipples missing or not! (These were XC717 36h). This said they are a bit heavier despite the lack of a braking surface.

Okay, now the experimental bit. As I was going for stronger rims I thought maybe I could shave a few grams off with alloy nipples. This was largely done tongue-in-cheek as I got the nipples free, and I already know how terrible alloy nipples are from my road/velodrome bikes (they take all the joy out of building/truing a wheel, they often seize/bond to the spoke, etc...)

This time I thought I'd test out a Beagle theory discussed earlier on in this thread: Alloy nipples are sacrificial, which saves the spoke, and pulls on the rim less, leaving a straighter wheel behind afterwards...

The first bit is very much true, the spoke threads were fine after the nipple had died due to a fast shot, unscrewing the remaining of the nipple was easy-peasy. But this isn't really much of an advantage, here's why:

1: Obviously that shot will have gotten through and scored a goal, as the nipple just shears, allowing the ball to stay on the line it was on before it hit your wheel.

2: Also obviously: You still have an errant spoke hanging out which is a danger to the rest of your bike and your legs

3: So, is it easier to repair the wheel as the spoke is not snapped? NO. The spoke has had some serious trauma by the impact, and *even if you didn't *wrap it around a neighbouring spoke to carry on playing, it's still been bent, and is a bitch to get it back into a new nipple, even if the threads are perfect. I'd rather have to remove two broken bits of spoke than try to straighten out a used one and seat it in its nipple by pulling on it and swearing.

4: Has the rim fared better because of the sacrificial nipple? Hard to say. As you can probably tell from the opening paragraph of this super nerdy post, I put most of the rim strength down to the rim I chose, not how much bending took place from spokes being hit and pulling on the rim.

On top of all of this, it's two rainy rides into my new wheelset, and on re-tensioning the front after the halloween tourney this morning (discs need you to be ontop of your tension!) i found a nipple that's already begun to bond to its spoke.

So once again, all I have proved is that alloy nipples suck balls and you should never use them. Brass ftw.

What about Ti nipples?

Fuck Ti. Everything I've had that has been made from ti has failed at some point. I dunno how NASA put up with it tbh.

In all seriousness, titanium is a stupid metal choice for spokes and nipples. It's too brittle.