Wheel Build

I built up my first set of wheels on Thursday. Both Jude and Ryan from the shop guided me through the process, and Jude actually finished off the build when I ran out of time. He was even nice enough to clean my cassette for me. He's kind of awesome.

Say, hey! Guess what isn't very much fun. Building wheels. I don't fully understand where to start lacing spokes to the rim, or which way the spoke should be facing, but I get how to lace it up. I wouldn't feel confident doing it on my own yet, but if I built two or three more sets, I think I would be alright. I just don't want to. Don't get me wrong, if I end up getting another custom set of wheels, I'll build them up myself, I just wont be happy while doing it.

"What did I build" you ask? Well, since I don't plan on having a road bike for the foreseeable future and my King hubs are the cross versions, I thought it would be nice to use the hubs instead of keeping them in storage. Since I have road tires mounted on my PowerTap wheels, and I only ever plan on using power for trainer rides, I decided to keep the PT wheels as road wheels and build the kings with a more cross oriented rim. The IRD Cadence rims aren't really meant for off-road poundings, so I went with Hed Belgium rims. They're much, much wider, stronger, and at a claimed 475g, not too heavy (IRDs came in at 390g).

Because the ERD was different from the IRDs, I needed new spokes, and if I was doing new spokes, might as well get new spoke nipples. I used DTSwiss Comps again for spokes, because they've been bombproof for me, and I went with alloy nerps, but we just happened to have them in a blue that perfectly matches my hubs. Neither blue matches the dark blue on the frame, but the bike still looks all types of good.

Once I get a few more rides in I'll let you know how much more I like the wheels, but at the moment, it's a lot. The wider rim (they're 23mm wide. Yes, they swallow a 700x23 tire whole, I checked) makes for more comfort, and the wheel is stiffer than the Shimano rims I was using before. It also feels great being back on the Kings. I missed the instant engagement terribly, and the noise. It grows on you.

Enjoy the pictures, and let me know what you think of the build. The third pic is just showing how my shifters say "SRAM Rival" now.