Upgraditis #2

Borrowed Rims

Well, I had managed to get the utility bike put together on budget... and then, wouldn't you Adam and Eve it, the trouble and strife wants her wheels back. Clearly, a fine excuse for fettling together a replacement set, if ever I done hear one.

Sharks With Frickin' Lasers

I fancy lasers...

Sun Ringle Estate rims for the On One Max hubs

Budget Summer Season Wheels

Rims. Round, with lots of holes in them for spokes. What else do you need to know?

Question is, on the somewhat limited RideItFixIt budget, could I scrape together enough cash to lace some appropriate rims to the On One hubs I recently reviewed and get them out on the trail?

Well, obviously I could, or this would be a
very short post.

And just what was the bare minimum cost for which I could put together a set of wheels, including tyres and cassette?

Spoke Notes

Tensionometers vs musical pitch

Serious wheelbuilders will use a spoke tensionometer to measure the spokes and to know when they have the spoke nipples at their optimum tightness.

What if your budget doesn't run to one of these tools? Or, you just want to check some pre-made wheels?

Well, fortunately, spokes make a predictable tone when they are plucked or twanged (just like a guitar). By comparing this tone with a predicted list, you can ensure your wheel has its spoke tensions correct.

A useful article here http://bikexprt.com/bicycle/tension.htm has a list of musical notes that match the optimum tension in both plain and db spokes.

The following four notes are the most common pitches for standard (3 cross) wheelbuilds:

700c plain spoke - approx 290mm - G - 392Hz
700c DB spoke - approx 290mm - A - 440Hz
26" plain spoke - approx 260mm - A - 440Hz
26" DB spoke - approx 260mm - B - 493Hz


Match them up to your own spokes using a tuning fork to make the musical tones http://www.seventhstring.com/tuningfork/tuningfork.html

Wheel Deal

Funn Bullet hubs, ACI DB spokes & Funn Xlrater rims... result:

F&R

Rear hub

Front hub

Rim detail

The rims are some strong beasties (28mm wide) and are made by Sun ("Funn Rims by Sun" it says on the labels) so quality isn't an issue. The front hub has the useful ability to swap between 9mm QR and 20mm with some press-in adaptors. Pretty standard fare now for hubs but quite neat when the hubs were first released (2008 or 2009 I think).