brons2

Hi, I am acquiring parts for a wheel build for our new-to-us tandem. It's a 1993 Burley Duet and it still has the original wheels on it so for several reasons I want to replace them.

So far I have acquired the Shimano HF-08 front and rear hubs and Sun Rhyno Light rims.

I wanted to go with triple butted spokes in the back and double in the front. I have not worked with triple butted before but from my research it seems like the best option for extreme loads.

I am 6'7" and 270 lbs, my wife is 5'10" and while she won't tell me what she weighs she's pretty curvy, and the bike is all 4130 crome-moly which is to say pretty heavy. So I'm guessing as a unit we're in the 450-500 lb range.

It seems that I have three options. There are the DT Swiss Alpina III, which are 2.3/1.8/2.0, the Sapim Force which are 2.2/1.8/2.0 but as far as I can tell only come in black, and the Taiwanese manufacturer Pillar which offers both a 2.3/1.8/2.0 and a 2.2/1.7/2.0 option. Wheelsmith does not have a triple butted option but does have the DH13 which is a 2.3/2.0 single butted option.

For personal reasons, I will not buy any DT Swiss products, period, full stop. So that leaves the others. I like the Sapim option but I don't like the fact that I cannot seem to find them in silver. Black spokes don't really fit the aesthetic of the bike. The Pillar spokes come in silver but I don't really know anything about Pillar. I did find a Pillar "TB2018" spoke that is not listed on the Pillar site but is listed here that is 2.2/1.8/2.0 and is attractively priced at roughly $0.81 per spoke.

So does anyone have any feedback on Pillar? That is what I am leaning towards. Or is there another manufacturer that I should be considering? I've always used Wheelsmith in previous builds but I am concerned about flange cracking if I use their 2.3/2.0 DH13 spoke.

Anyways, TIA for any feedback.

fietsbob

Did you get 48 hole hubs and rims.. ?

fietsbob

Triple Butt, as mentioned, are 3 different gages 13 on the hook end 15 in the center , and 14 on the threaded end..

so if you change the definition then you can be both right and wrong ..

surreal

******************************????

FBinNY 

The OP asked for first hand experience with some non DT brand spokes. Let's not get caught up in a semantics fight over whether triple butted is an appropriate term for spokes with 3 different gauges.

surreal

Fair enough. Sapim makes good stuff, but I've never used their triple-butted offerings. But, semantics aside, Booger's post indicates that he hasn't even read the OP's question nor is he familiar with what many folks do tend to describe as triple-butted spokes. Hence, the multiple question marks.

brons2

He makes a good point on semantics - they are not really triple butted, they just have triple widths. Just a double butted spoke with a little more oomph on the Jbend

fietsbob

Being a Tandem, how many spoke are you buying? I built up a wheelset for International cyclo-camping tours

having a 40/48 wheel set , the 88 of them were straight 2mm. and had no significant issues ,

even 1 rear drive side spoke breaking was no problem, since there were 47 remaining to share the load, in the wheel.

I note the tandem set is either 40 or 48 hole .. https://www.jensonusa.com/Shimano-HF08-Tandem-Hub.

brons2

I have 40/48 but back-arse-wards, 40 rear 48 front, since those were the Shimano hubs I could get cheapest on fleabay. Did I mention I am on a budget? I had already ordered 40/48 rims so it worked out fine just backwards of what I intended.

I talked with a guy on the tandem forum on here who's team is over 500 and he's using 40/40 with no problems so I think it will be fine. Will go 4x rear and maybe 3x front just because I already have 48 spokes.

Anyway, I hope at this point I just can wrangle enough time away from the Boss to get this done in a reasonable amount of time she is kind of on the warpath about the honey-do list. plus I am slow when I work on stuff and especially wheels. But anyway good times

cyccommute 

Have no fear that asking for triple butted spokes will lead to blank stares. DT Swiss calls the Alpine III triple butted.

They've used the term...correctly...for nearly 15 years now. I doubt that it's going to be a new term for anyone who is familar with the product.

I have no direct experience with the Pillar spokes but they are a stainless spoke and the material is similar to that used by the other manufacturers. I doubt that they would fail you. BDop Cycling
has them for $6.50 for 8. That's a pretty good price. Alpines are only available in the US in black and you usually have to buy a whole box for $80. I'd say they are worth a shot.

brons2

Yeah those Pillars at Bdop are the ones that I linked to in the first post. I am just not familiar with them, thusly this thread. And I was wondering also if there was maybe something else out there that I had not heard of that should be considered.

As for the box of 80, that would be inconvenient because I need 40 for the rear wheel, or 88 if I were to use them all the way around. Either 40 extra or 8 too few. Not that I'm going to use DT Swiss anyway, not to get off topic, but my DT Swiss hub ratchets failed on PBP2007 after a night of torrential rain, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere in France. They weren't very old and had been recently serviced. But anyway...

Bill Kapaun

According to bikepedia.com-
That bike has SunTour shifters/cassette.
I'm not up on SunTour that much, but i know at least one of their 7 speeds have funky cog spacing.
You might check that out to make sure your shifter/RDER will work OK.

brons2

I have no interest in retaining the old Suntour stuff. I bought the bike knowing that I would be doing wholesale changes. The entire drivetrain is being replaced with 9 speed gear. HF08 freehub, HG61 cassette, SGS derailer, KMC chain, Stronglight ramped and pinned chainwheels and brifters up front. The only parts that will be re-used are timing chain and chainwheels, and I'm going to re-use one of the barcons to actuate the drag brake.

surreal

if you're stingy, have you considered single-butted 13/14g? These Sapims are strong, and at just a buck a spoke (including nerple!), you can get'r done for $40 for that rear wheel (I think you said you had the spokes for the front). You can order 20 (i'd go 22, to have some spares) of each size, for DS and NDS needs....

HTH,
-rob (also stingy)

fietsbob

Boxes of spokes, are 50 and 100ct, the price overall, is better for a Box than an each.

the Retail Markup is taken per spoke if you just buy the exact number required.

surreal

If you need 40 spokes, even if they're a dollar each, that's still cheaper than buying a box of 100 spokes, even if those are 50 cents each. You'd save $10. Now,some smart ppl understand even more math, so they realize that a rear wheel is dished, with different sized spokes! So, if you only need 20 of size x spoke(nds) and 20 of size y spoke (ds), you'll need to buy 200 spokes--a box of size y and a box of size x-- at $.50 which is $100 versus spending $40 on the spokes you could've bought individually.

Isn't math fun?!

**EDIT: the $1/spoke figure includes a nerple per spoke. Depending on the brand, the boxes of spokes may or may not come with nerps.)

cyccommute 

Almost all the boxes of spokes I've ever purchased have been in 72 count. The cost of a box of 72 DT Alpine III is $80 or $1.11 each. You can often find single or double butted spokes for sale on a per each basis but I seldom find specialized spokes like the Alpines for sale by the each.

Also every spoke I've ever purchased came with nipples. They are almost always plated brass but they still come with the nipples.

Scooper

I have to say, semantics and definitions are important. I don't mean to derail the thread, but spoke manufacturers like DT-Swiss and tubing manufacturers like Reynolds have, thankfully, defined triple-butted for us, and we should all observe their definitions when discussing their products to avoid misunderstandings.





Sheldon Brown agrees with this definition.

https://sheldonbrown.com/gloss_tp-z.html

surreal

DT always comes with nerps; Wheelsmiths usually don't. I think the price-per-spoke thing is usually only available for straight gauge and single-butted. This is b/c it tends to be firms that are cutting and rolling blanks to custom lengths, which won't work for double/"triple" butted spokes for reasons that ought to be obvious.

The drawback to the 72/box or 50/100 to a box is that you're usually left over with a buttload of spokes. This is especially true with a lot of builds where the front needs different from the rear, and the NDS needs different from the DS. I buy spokes "individually" every time I can. If I need 36 for the front, and 18 each for the rear, I tend to get like 40, 20, and 20 instead...

surreal

Based on the OP's info (already has spokes for the front, running a 40h hf08 in the back with a 700c sun rhyno lite, plans on going 4x), I'd go with 298mm. Both sides. Very little dish for this wheelbuild. Still cheaper to buy 42 s/b Sapims as compared to 72 DT Alpines. (The longest of the pillar triple-butted spokes seems to be 297; might be close enough to get away with it...)


-rob

Asi

about buying spokes in bulk, go for it, and you can adjust thread them and cut them with appropriate tools like https://www.amazon.com/Hozan-C-700-Ga.../dp/B001PT6R4I and https://www.amazon.com/Hozan-YD-1017-..._bxgy_sg_img_y

But only if you already have them or find them on flea market on the cheap. - or planning to build lots of wheels

Anyway, this approach works best for straight gauge spokes and get the longest you can. so you can make any length of spoke from kid's 16" to vintage 700B-700A road wheels.

Being triple butted you would need the length to be closer to what you need as not to cut the entire butted section on the end. So get 300mm spoke and cut as needed but be aware how long is the butted end with the threads you need at least 30mm+the threads to be on the safe side.

CbadRider

Clean up on aisle 3 ...

I deleted the snarky posts that were going off-topic. The word definitions and semantics have already been discussed, no need to go there further.

If you can't answer the OP's question nicely then it's time to put away they keyboard for a while.

mrrabbit 

My spoke recommendations:

DT Swiss - Triple or Double - Double should be fine.
Sapim - Triple or Double - Once again double should be fine.

If you are going to go with Pillar (entry to mid-range quality spoke) you may as well consider CNspoke (entry to mid-range quality spoke) as well.

Irregardless of brand name - 2.3mm at the head and elbow is a lot of beef. The Pillar's and CN's will hold up just fine...

=8-)

Kimmo 

You know what? Given the fact tandems have a 145mm OLD rear, the heavier rider is on the front, and the braking loads aren't inconsiderable, more spokes on the front just about makes sense.

brons2

I ended up going with the Alpine III despite my DT Swiss reservations. The Pillar spoke only coming in 297 was a concern to me. If the required length would have been between 297 and 298, I think I would have been fine with 297, but all the calculators I looked at called for something between 298 and 299.

I never could find the Sapims in silver and I didn't really want black spokes. Also as one person suggested I checked out CNspoke but I could not find any online retailers that carried their triple butted spokes.

Starbike in Germany sells the Alpines in silver for 0.70EUR apiece so I just got them that way. Shipping is expensive and slow but oh well, such is life sometimes. My 9/10 chainrings are also on the slow boat from xxcycle.com in France so I'm just going to keep using the factory wheels for now.