Today's fun was taking a 60 mile inaugural ride on the wheels I built yesterday. The new wheels have blue - yes, blue - anodized Mavic Pros laced to Suntour Superbe high flange hubs.

When I'm subjecting a wheelset to sea trials, I like to get in a little bit of rougher stuff. Here is the bike w/new wheels towards the end of the ride at an undisclosed location somewhere along the C&O Towpath (cheesy cell phone pic):



Kinda hard to see, but the rear cluster is an IRD 13/24. Previous wheels, which are going to wife's bike, had an 11-30 cassette paired to 34/48 in front. This ended up working pretty well, though on long and steeper downhills, a smaller cog would add a little yahoo value.

I don't really need the really low gears so much anymore now that I'm not hauling my kid around in the trailer.

It was a beautiful day today in Washington D.C and the wheels were just as true upon return as they were upon departure, so they are now certified for full duty...

Those rims look great - I wasn't sure when I saw them on your earlier post - but the colour totally works on that frame!

When tires wear out, get the blue ones. Looks great!

Yeah, that is a bad pic of a bike with tires that don't match the look. The tires are some old Conti Top Tourers with some life still in them and I'm a bit of a tightwad. At a minimum, blackwalls would look better with this scheme. I'd have to contemplate blue tires for a while, it is sort of running up the score on an already blue bike.