On May 6, 4:39 pm, "joseph.santanie...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"
<joseph.santanie...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On May 6, 8:46 pm, landotter <landot...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > On May 6, 7:22 am, jim <skijor...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > > Hi all, wondering if anyone out there has had experience with their
> > > custom wheels, good or bad?
>
> > If they're building them as Sheldon recommends and checking tension--
> > I'd trust them for sure. The prices are extremely fair, $40 labor per
> > wheel and $1 each per butted spoke. Mind, if you need a very normal
> > combination of rim/spoke/hub--it's more economical and fun to just get
> > a wheelinabox and tune them using Sheldon Brown's instructions--takes
> > all of fifteen minutes, and they'll be as durable as something hand
> > built.
>
> It's even more fun to build them from his instructions!
I don't know if it's fun in the classical sense, but it can be
meditative after you've gotten into it. Tuning a wheelinabox set,
riding them hard and discovering that you've managed to add stability
and value to a commodity is sort of the first little baby step until
you one day arrive at the point where you really need a hub and rim
combo that's unusual enough to require a custom build.
I got to see a gal riding on one of my first sets of custom wheels in
the park this weekend, a trash heap huge orange German woman's bike
with 60cm bars and MA3s on a Sachs Torpedo hub with a premium
assortment of stainless recycled spokes from domestic and European
sponsors (consider the project, people). She'd ridden the snot out of
the thing the last year and had just been to the LBS to put a fine $40
top-of-the-line Electra basket on it, as she re****ted, "it had been
utterly bullet proof." Good wheels are good wheels, no matter what ya
bolt them to. Good wheels can make orange trash heap bikes pretty fun
bikes, especially if you add gold KMC chains. *bling*
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