goldfinch

I am building up a long haul trucker with a 42 cm frame. I don't have wheels yet. I will not use the bike for loaded touring but for credit card touring and as a generalist bike to ride somewhat ratty roads.

Recommendations on wheels? I am easy on wheels. I weigh between 110 and 120. My road bike has hand built lightweight wheels that have never needed truing. I would prefer the wheels not be too overbuilt, yet be able to stand some gravel riding. I like 1.5 to 1.75 tires.

Thanks for any suggestions.

fietsbob

Bound to be some thin Light weight rims out there (but I am not feeling like a search Concierge today )..

Before Keith Bontrager became a wholly owned man of Trek Corp.
still ran a garage shop in Santa Cruz.. He bought 40 hole 622 rims and took out a section and rolled a MA 40 smaller to 559.

goldfinch

I understand about the search. I search and end up confused. The 26 inch wheels are marketed either as mountain bike wheels with mountain bike marketing speak, or as bullet proof strong touring wheels that can take tremendous loads. My google foo is lacking, but partly because there doesn't seem to be marketing for uses like my uses.

fietsbob

Walk into a Bike shop. Talk to real people in person.

there is a rim catalog in the Distributors order books in every bike shop, I dont have one at my House .


Just Data? narrow rims weigh less than wide ones .

Whats wrong with Sun CR18 rims the product of same die is rolled up in all sorts of sizes/lengths.

kingston 

I ordered these Mavic XM 719 / Shimano Deore XT 780 wheels recently for my winter bike. I couldn't find anything like them in the US without going custom-built. The rims may be a little heavier duty than you are looking for, but there are other options available. The Germans seem to have more of a market for touring/trekking than we do in the US.

Tandem Tom

My wife and I have 26" LHT's and I am getting ready to build up new wheels. I have Velocity Atlas rims sitting in my shop just waiting!

Tourist in MSN

At your weight and anticipated usage, maybe you need to check out the catalogs from some of the better rim manufacturers and focus on the lightest weight rims they make.

The narrower 26 inch rims should work well with 1.5 to 1.75 inch tires. At this link, go down to the section on "Width Considerations" for discussion on rim width.
Tire Sizing Systems

I can't recommend a model because I use rims that are robust enough to carry twice the weight than you will use.

Have you posed your question to the forums for commuting or other users with lighter weight bikes? There are some light weight touring folk that look at this forum, but they are in the minority.

kingston 

I went to three bike shops to look for 26" touring wheels. I was looking for XT hubs for rim brakes and basically any touring quality rim. None of the shops could even order what I was looking for. The best they could do was sell me the parts for me to build the wheels myself. The touring market is so small in the US that most guys in the shop don't know anything about it. Occasionally you will find someone who does, and they will tell you that they don't stock touring stuff because it doesn't sell.

bikemig 

I picked up a deore hub/mavic 717 wheelset from Velo Mine for a ridiculously low price; they're light and have held up very well, Mavic XC717 Wheelset Shimano Deore Hubs 6 Bolt Disc or V Brake [0072774739523] - $119.00 Velomine.com : Worldwide Bicycle Shop, fixed gear track bike wheelsets campagnolo super record vintage bike

They're machine built. Better quality and more expensive are quality bike product wheels. They make very solid wheels. Quality Wheels Pavement Front Wheel 26" 36h Shimano LX / Mavic XM317 / DT Champion All Silver

fietsbob

I suppose My Local shop is not as incompetent as yours , Or I know how to ask for what I want Better.

An there is only one .. here.

kingston 

Probably a combination. I live in suburban Chicago, where there are dozens if not hundreds of bike shops within reasonable driving distance, and I still haven't found one I like.

goldfinch

OK hon, I'll go in for bike shop advice. Actually, I have to go into a bike shop today as my pump head failed. And if they have something that works I don't mind paying some extra to support bricks and mortar and the value of advice.


Thanks for the links! If the bike shop isn't helpful I may end up ordering either the Mavics or find some non-out of stock Quality Bike Products wheels.

indyfabz

Are you near Minneapolis? If so, check in on these people:

The Alternative Bike/Board Shop | Bike Sales, Bike Repair, Skateboard, Snowboard - Minneapolis The Alt

They did some work for me and a couple of other people when crossing the country in '99. The fact that they are still around must mean something. They hand build wheels for $50 plus parts, which you can supply your self or order from them.

goldfinch

Not near there until Spring. I am in Tucson for the winter. I haven't heard about these guys. I'll have to check them out.

corwin1968

If you plan to do some gravel riding, you might consider getting rims that are wide enough to support a 2" tire.

I would go to Velocity's website and just check out the rims they have and compare weights. I think the most important thing you can do is to find a good wheel builder. I'm running custom built 700c Velocity Dyads with 40 DTSwiss spokes and high flange touring hubs and they really are not that heavy. There were built specifically for a 350+ lb guy to ride off-road in 2 years I've had one very slightly loose spoke that I attribute to an accident rather than normal riding.

cyccommute 

Just about anything will support a 2" tire. I've run Mavic XC717 or similar on mountain bikes for eons without issues.

Frankly, for a 110 lb woman, anything would work. If money is no object...but it usually is...a set of White Industry T-11 hubs (with titanium hub) laced to a set of Mavic XC717 or Velocity A23 or Aeroheats would be more than strong enough and superbly lightweight. I have a set of 32 hole T-11 hubs laced to A23 in a 700C that weigh 2 lbs less than the 20 hole Veulta wheels they replaced.

goldfinch

Money is not a consideration, but good sense is. I stopped at a local bike shop today to get a part for my pump and talked about wheels. They think that there really isn't that big of an upside to spending tons of money on the wheel. I just don't know, it is hard to tell how much is "placebo" effect with wheels. I bought some beautiful very light weight hand built wheels for my road bike and I swear I was faster on hills. But I was also well trained at the time so I was getting faster and faster anyway. In the end, I just didn't know if they were better.

I have no good idea where to draw the line on the cost benefit analysis and often end up with analysis paralysis. I am talking about a long haul trucker frame, does it make sense to equip a tank with ultra lightweight wheels? I just don't know.

bikemig 

Light wheels with good quality tires make a real difference. You can keep the stock wheels for touring. That is a tough cost benefit analysis but there is a noticeable difference when you can save a fair amount of weight on the wheel.

goldfinch

One thing I never do is skimp on tires.

cyccommute 

The "placebo effect" is used far too often and incorrectly. If you notice a difference between two wheelsets, you are likely experiencing a real difference. You can always test the "placebo effect" by changing back and forth between two wheelsets of different weights and going for a ride over the same course.

As for the LHT, does it make any more sense to add weight? Will that make it any easier to ride up a hill of your choosing?

kingston 

Is there a rule-of-thumb of some sort regarding the cost of the frame vs. the cost of the wheels to achieve a balanced performance or are those two things completely independent?

bikemig 

You can pretty easily knock of over a pound of weight with a lighter wheelset and tires; that is a very noticeable difference.

The stock Alex DH 19 rims weigh 520 grams. Not bad for a touring rim. By way of illustration, a mavic xc 717 rim weighs 400 grams. That's 120 grams per wheel or 240 grams in total.

The stock continental sport contact 26 x 1.5 (assuming that the OP has the 1.5 and not the 1.75) weighs 550 grams per tire. A pasela 26 x 1.5 weighs 430 grams. That's 120 grams per wheel or 240 grams total.

You can knock of a pound of wheel weight for less than $200 (that's wheels and tires):

The panaracers will run you around $22 each, Panaracer Pasela Tire 26 x 1.5 Wire BK/BSK

The wheel set is $120 at velo mine, Mavic XC717 Wheelset Shimano Deore Hubs 6 Bolt Disc or V Brake [0072774739523] - $119.00 Velomine.com : Worldwide Bicycle Shop, fixed gear track bike wheelsets campagnolo super record vintage bike

Those wheels are light. I bought a pair for my bridgestone xo-2; they're pretty decent wheels.

hueyhoolihan

pretty much what i think too.

i toured nine months on light mavic MTB 28h rims and some light weight hubs, running 1" tire in front and a 1 1/4" in rear with zero wheel problems. wasn't carrying a big load and i weighed about 170 at the time. but then again i don't jump curbs and watch where i'm going...

goldfinch

I guess it makes sense to go light, to a point. The problem with determining whether it is a placebo effect is that there is no good way to blind your one person study.

bikemig 

Lighter weight may have a placebo effect but there is also a difference that can be measured,

How much time does extra weight cost on Alpe d?Huez?