Far From Home

As the title says, I want to find best places to find touring wheels including builders. Also are 90s bikes considered vintage?

pdlamb

My touring wheels mostly came with my touring bikes. REI did touch their wheels up before I left the store since I told them I was riding loaded across the country, but they had only minor truing done after 3,000 miles. Bilenky was fine right out of the box, IIRC.

Over the years, I've bought wheels from three different wheel builders. Now I grant you, I'm a clyde, but all three builders knew that. Still, I've had to tension all those wheels after spokes started coming loose. (Now they're fine, though.)

mev

I have used Sugar Wheel Works in Portland, OR for half a dozen wheels.

I am a larger rider and have carried a fair amount of gear over different places - and hence also broken a few rims/hubs along the way. My interactions included:
- I took their Wheel building class twice: once in 2012 prior to a trip across Africa and once in 2015 prior to a trip across North/South America.
- In the 2016+2017 trip I had two issues with Phil Woods hubs. The first was on my Trek 520 on the Cassier Highway where the hub started spinning freely both directions. This was the wheel I had built up in the class the fall before. Sugar Wheel Works helped me with Phil Woods to get the hub internals replaced under warranty including having them express mail it across the US/Canada border to Smithers BC where the wheel got rebuilt. The second time was on my Trek 4500 near Medicine Bow, WY where the hub again started spinning freely. This was also a wheel built by SWW but earlier so not warranty. A bike shop in Fort Collins CO was able to get the hub working again but I didn't quite trust it. So SWW also built up a new wheel using a Shimano hub with different mechanism. When I reached San Diego, I took the train to Portland and swapped wheels and that wheel lasted for the rest of the trip to Tierra Del Fuego and is still on that bike.
- Last year I took six months to ride through the US. Just in case, I decided to order a spare wheel from SWW. It came in handy as my Trek 520 rim eventually developed some small cracks around the eyelets and so I swapped in the spare.
- In addition to the four wheels referred to in sentences above, I've had at least three other wheels on other bikes I also had built from SWW.

The original owner sold the store before last year, but my interactions with them last year as well worked fine. In general, I've gone towards 40 or 48 spoke rear wheels with a solid rim (e.g. Velocity Cliffhanger). It takes a little to get the wheel built/sent but I've been happy with the service and interactions and so have gone back to Sugar Wheel Works multiple times.

RB1-luvr

I have a friend who has a custom wheel building business in the Berkshires. Not sure if that helps.

imi

I buy rims and hubs from german online stores (Bike24 & Rose), then my local bike mechanic gets the right spokes and builds the wheels. We’ve known each other for over twenty years, and he’s fine with me buying parts.

Highly recommended if you’re passing through and need repairs: Martin at Pedalen och Fälgen in Gothenburg, Sweden

Tourist in MSN

Build the wheels myself. I buy the hubs and rims that I want from the cheapest on-line seller. Spokes and nipples, I used to buy locally but that shop moved and is not local any more, do not have a regular supplier for spokes and nipples now. Rim tape, do not have a regular supplier.

You will get better answers if you have more specificity, is this for a heavy touring bike, gravel bike, etc?

Vintage, there is not a commonly accepted definition that I am aware of. But I would think that pre-indexed shifting would be vintage, with indexed shifting is not.

veganbikes

Peter White and Bill Mould would be two people I could recommend highly. Sugar Wheel Works generally gets good reviews as well and I have had some great wheels from Astral. Of course I have also worked with some wheelbuilders who were great but don't have any separate business or maybe aren't currently building.

In terms of 90s bikes being vintage, I guess one could say yes and another could say no. I would probably say with modern indexed shifters and such probably a little less so but heck with cars you can find cars that have historical plates near me that are from 2000 which is just ridiculous (though I guess if you cannot import a car that is newer than 24 years old then it makes some sense in that context)

Doug64

This is my post from another "wheel" thread.

Quote:
My wife has a set of wheels built by Brian Pagel, Stoic Wheels, Portland, Oregon. They are 700c wheels with 36 spoke Dyad rims, Shimano Ultegra hubs, and butted Wheelsmith spokes She has over 28,000 miles on the rims, and they have never needed any adjustments.

I have two touring bikes set up with 36 spoke Dyad rims, also built by Brian. One set has Shimano105 hubs, and the other Shimano XTs. Both have Wheelsmith butted spokes.

We were just outside of Medicine Hat, Alberta descending toward the bridge crossing the South Saskatchewan River. I was riding my Bianchi with the 105/Dyad wheelset, and approaching 30 MPH when I hit a large piece of metal in the road. It blew out my front tire, but I was able slow down on the bridge and bring my fully loaded bike to a stop. I got off the road, and started to put a new tube on the front wheel. Removing the tire, I saw a large bulge in the sidewall of the rim. I put the new tube in and saw that the wheel was still true and round.


I could not use the front brake, but the bike rolled easily into medicine Hat. I called the guy who built the wheels, and asked him about pounding out the bulge. He recommended getting a new wheel if I could find one. The bike shop in Medicine Hat had one wheel that would work. It got me home.

I almost cried when the bike mechanic cut my hub out of the wheel. My Bianchi with a new front wheel is on the stand behind the mechanic.


The bulge is at the 09:00 position. This is one of the few times I wished I had disc brakes. I'm sure my wheel would have made it through the rest of the trip. If a new wheel was not an option, I would have ridden using just the rear brakes until I found a wheel or was home.

Steve B.

I have some nice Bontrager offset touring wheels built by Rivendell, they are bombproof. Peter White in NH would be another good source,

cyccommute 

I build my own. I buy good hubs…mostly Phil Wood or White Industries…, DT Alpine III spokes, and usually the lightest rims I can. Velocity A23 or Dyad, although I do run a set of Deep Vs because they are red. I hate the weight of the Deep Vs but the color was right.

Aubergine 

I also build my own wheels, largely because I use Campagnolo equipment and I can build what I want much more easily than I can find it ready made. Like others, I like the Dyads for loaded riding but I have used other Velocity and Mavic rims as well.

Learning to build a wheel is a great skill.

RCMoeur 

From what I see, Deep Vs aren't all that heavy, unless you're comparing them to Recorde du Mondes or something like that. Never felt any performance penalty, even on one of my fastest bikes. Plus they are astonishingly strong - I don't think I've had to true any of the sets I've laced up, and some are going on decades of service.

Duragrouch

I was needing new wheels every five years (cracks at rim spoke holes) on a road race bike I was putting mega miles on daily (and I was light then), third set of wheels had double sockets/eyelets (Mavic) so pulled on both inner and outer rim wall, reducing stress by over half (outer wall next to tube, socket pulled on much larger area than at nipple), wore like iron for many years until bike retired for a townie. I think that style of rim was considered a touring rim at the time. What's folks views on those, versus newer rims that are just thicker aluminum at the holes?

saddlesores

learn to build you own. you'll get what you want, designed and built the way you want.
plenty of youtube videos to see how it's done.

sheldon has a nice instructional website you can follow.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

Duragrouch

I found that building my first set of wheels was enormously satisfying, even enjoyable. The only reason I bought full wheelsets later is because they cost less than the components. I never needed a truing stand. I would use the bike frame for the rear, fork for the front, with clothespins or other clamped in place to check radial and lateral true. I didn't need to know the value of the rear wheel dish, I just trued it to be centered in the chainstays. These days, if I buy a bike and the wheels are only off laterally, I just true them. If they are off much radially, I lower the tension on all spokes to zero, even out the nipple positions, then slowly bring them all up to tension while watching radial and lateral runout. When I get done, the rim doesn't move when spun, and stays in true forever until a spoke breaks years down the road.

cyccommute 

They are 580g per rim compared to Velocity A23 at 450g per wheel. I’d have no problem using the A23 for touring and would even prefer it because it comes in an off-set rim. I’m also not a believer in the need for a “strong” rim. Rims do little more than hold the spokes and are a convenient place to put a tire. Wheel strength is centered on the spokes, hence the Alpine III spokes.

tcs

247 opinions:

What constitutes a Classic or Vintage bicycle?


[QUOTE]I would think that pre-indexed shifting would be vintage, while indexed shifting is not.[/QUOTE]

We all know what you meant, but note here my WWII-era Sturmey-Archer AW is index shifted.

Tourist in MSN

Maybe your Sturmey Archer from the early 1940s is vintage.

By Sturmey Archer standards my 1966 Sturmy Archer probably is too new to be vintage. Mine, the bike uses cable brakes, not rod brakes, thus is modern.

Rick

I would use Ryde formally Rigida Andra 30 or 40 rims and Phil Wood hubs.

indyfabz

Confused. You can get great wheels a lot of places around the world. My LBS built me a pair nearly 6 years ago. The front needed a slight truing after a few miles. Other than that, they have never been worked on.

Far From Home

I have lived in a county with out a single LBS and many towns with none. I have traveled to many distant communities on bikes but never had any bike riders in my social network. Where am now has some LBSs I visited. Two that I have visited told me for what I want to check online. I usually hike alone and always bike alone.

Far From Home

Someone has put me in touch with a builder, look forward to see what happens.

Tourist in MSN

Based on that, it sounds like you might be stuck with the first wheel builder you find, and they might not be very knowledgeable in which rims and hubs are best for your needs.

If the builder suggests a particular hub or rim, I suggest you do some internet research to find out if those are good components for touring or not, the builder might be inclined to sell the components to you that they already have, not what is best for your application.

You have not been very specific about your particular bike, thus I have no specific suggestions. Heavy or light touring, wheel and tire size, conventional quick release or through axle, disc or rim brake, type of ground ridden on, and of course cost, etc. These are all factors that go into component selection decisions. In your situation, cup and cone hubs might be better than cartridge bearing hubs, as they are easy to re-grease with the right wrenches. And ball bearings of the correct size may be more easily procured than the correct cartridge bearing later.

When I tour by bicycle, I bring a couple spare spokes or an emergency substitute. Odds of needing one is miniscule, but if you need one, you really need it. And spokes come in different sizes. If you might want to have a few spares for each wheel, it is best to buy them when you have the wheels built, as then you will get the correct sizes.

tcs

Yep. And you can get poor wheels, too. I'll spare everybody my boring horror stories and just say there's a reason I began building my own wheels.

Steve B.

Having once had a decent wheelset from Bicycle Wheel Warehouse, ordered a 2nd set, the rear was so absurdly out of true, it was just amazing they shipped it. I thought about the effort of returning, ended up on my truing stand and I fixed it. It’s held up well, but won’t buy from BWW ever again.