Tall Cool One

Anyone have experience with Velocity A23 rims? I am looking at a set has only been ridden once built by a local wheel builder. I'm getting ready to take the plunge. I can get the wheelset for $230.

dr_lha

$230 for a handbuilt set is a solid deal. Of course how well they work for you depends on the build and how heavy you are. A23s are a bit lightweight for super-clydes.

Black wallnut 

To me that seems like a fair price. What drilling, 32h or 36h? Quality of the wheelset will be mostly determined by the quality of the build, uniform high tensioned spokes and stress relieved.

Chitown_Mike

I am going to sit here and learn. I'd like some new rims for my roadie in the next season or so.

awfulwaffle 

That's a good deal round these parts. I'd do it. IDK about the A23, but I've got an Aerohead on my rear wheel and it's held up great since I got it towards the end of last season. I'm not very nice to my wheels, and I've ridden it between 195 and 215 lbs hopping over cracks in the road etc without any issues. Of course, that was all after I tensioned the wheel properly.

chriskmurray

Great rims! I have owned two sets and they have both been trouble free despite a lot of time on dirt. It is my go to rim for people looking for a nice set of road/cross wheels.

Darth Lefty 

I almost bought such a set but went budget instead. The idea of trying tubeless sometime in the future was attractive. 5700 10-speed or 5800 11-speed hubs? I'd go for the latter if there's a choice, to be forward-compatible.

You can get A23 rims in lots of colors :-)

PhotoJoe 

This place seems to have good reviews. Albeit not 11speed, here is a new 36h A23/105 wheelset for $239 shipped.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Velocity-A23...item4d2344ac8c

A23/Ultegra/11 Speed $289

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Velocity-A23...item3f3de5bfd2

Black wallnut 

Having built wheelsets in the last year and half with both 105 and the new Ultegra IMHO the price for Ultegra is well worth it. The smoothness between those hubs is night and day. It is not so much that 105 is bad, more along the lines that Ultegra is so much better.

CliffordK

I've been using the Aerohead rims, and like them. But I've been reading about people who like the wider rims. I also like the OC option on the rear which is available with both the Aerohead and the A23. It does seem to even out spoke tension and reduce dishing a bit. I also have it on a narrow 126mm spaced frame.

brawlo

I had A23 rims to Ultegra hubs. I really liked the 23mm rims and they do make a difference to road feel. I killed the rear rim after about 3 years, but apparently these were Australian manufactured and the current US ones are a better rim. Once they died I went to using Kinlin XC279 rims on DA hubs which are a bit stiffer in hard cornering but still nice to ride on in a straight line.

Actually, once the A23s died, I had the hubs relaced to Mavic Open Pro rims and they were terrible to ride on in comparison. They felt really stiff and unforgiving compared to the A23s and they're now living in the shed waiting to go on my bike when I sell it in the future.

Bill Kapaun

A wheel builder or a wheel assembler?
What hubs?

jaxgtr

That is a great deal.

adrien

I have two friends who had a23s, and got rid of them. They are apparently very difficult to mount tires on. One friend routinely rolls tires into his rims with no levers -- took him an hour to change a flat with a23s.

No idea if that was just a bad run or not, but both guys are now on different rims (archetypes and HED Belgiums)

seely

The key to the A23 is to use a thin tubeless tape (as we recommend), even with tubes. Thick rim tape, like Velox, will make tire mounting difficult due to the tubeless web design. With two layers of Velotape, I've yet to find a tire I can't mount easily by hand on an A23.

signalnc

old thread but just wanted to add my 2 cents--took me 30 minutes to mount a 28mm gatorskin on the a23 rim last night. I've never had trouble like that before.

dr_lha

Did you take the advice of the poster above you?

signalnc

not yet. they are a friends wheels-- 30 minutes was two of us taking turns on one wheel. I'll tell him about changing the rim tape. I didn't see this thread until this morning.

tarwheel 

I bought a set of A23/105 wheels earlier this year and quickly sold them. I never had so much trouble mounting tires in my life, even after heeding the advice about using thin rim tape. I decided that I would be in big trouble if I ever had to fix a flat on the road, which is a not-so-uncommon occurrence.

CliffordK

I have heard the A23 is a bit tight for mounting tires.

I've got a set of Shimano RS-10 wheels which is a bit of a pain, but a couple of tires levers and they go on (and can come off). Now that is something that is routinely part of my emergency kit (I didn't need them with my old wheels).

You might try a set of velo plugs, although they may not like the deep channel.

My Aerohead wheels have a bit different profile than the A23's, but I use veloplugs + 1 layer of narrow electrical tape to cover the edges of the plugs on the OC rims as they tend to ride towards the center a bit.

Metaluna

Sorry to bump this thread, but what are peoples' thoughts on this rim for a 255# rider? I have a 36 hole OC version of this rim that I bought a couple of years ago but never built into a wheel, after reading some dire warnings about how light it is. Even Velocity has more or less replaced this rim with the Quill, which they claim is something like 75% radially stiffer, as well as laterally stiffer, wider, and lighter. (It's also $125)

But the money is already spent and I'm kind of thinking about experimenting with tubeless on the rear. So since I already have the A23 OC rim and a hub, this would be a way to get into it for the lowest incremental cost, IF I can built it into a reasonably durable wheel for mostly smooth pavement (with the very occasional couple of miles of dirt road thrown in).

Lately I've built a couple of wheels with Sapim Force triple-butted spokes on the DS, and Lasers (2.0/1.5/2.0) on the NDS to even out the spoke stretch, with good results. But I don't know if that's appropriate with this rim, which probably isn't very laterally stiff. According to my spoke calculator, the OC rim on a 105 10 speed hub should yield an NDS tension of 64% of the DS, if that helps.