So what have I been doing lately?
- Rebuilt the rear wheel using DT Swiss Pro head spoke nipples and Bison metal lock as spoke prep. I may or may not have stripped a few before.
- Built the front wheel!
- Drilled some holes in the stainless steel VO rack.
Not much to be said about the first two points. Just look at these beauties:
Weighing in at
1912 grams (
4.2 lbs) for the
rear wheel. (Including 9-speed cassette and tyres but without QR) and
1678 grams (
3.7 lbs) for the
front wheel (Dynohub and tyres but without QR).
Both are 700C 36H 3-cross wheels and should be good for some loaded riding. I'm pretty pleased with them so far.
The metal lock works as a cheap spoke prep offering lubrication when building and locking the threads once I am done. I had practically no spoke windup on both wheels using this.
As for the front rack... I contacted VO to inquire about drilling holes to guide the wires through the stainless steel tubing. Plenty of room inside but it wasn't entirely free of any burs on the inside it seems.
I can get a thinner double stranded wire through just fine but SON's coaxial cables seem to get caugh on something.
Stainless steel is ... unpleasant to drill though as you need special, extra hard, drills and take it slow. If you run the drill too fast it will cause the metal to
work harden which makes it extra difficult to work with.
Slow speed and firm pressure is where it is at. And that's kind of tricky with small tubing XD
How slow you ask? These two small holes below took me 30-40 minutes to drill using a cordless hand drill.
All that is left now is to pull the wire for the dynamo > front light connection.
I'll try again in the morning but at the very least it seems worth it for the rear light already.
