tsl

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to afford it, but with some overtime and belt-tightening I made it. I treated the Portland to a new wheelset and added some more lights.


Shimano Alfine dynamo hub...



...laced to a Velocity VXC disc-specific hoop in Spangled Silver. Spokes are DT Competition, rotor is the CenterLock version of the Avid G3.



With the cyclocross tires



Rear hub is Velocity's road disk hub. 130mm disc hubs are hard to find. I'm glad the Velocity hub is so nice.



Rear wheel is spoked and laced same as the front. It gets the ISO six-bolt version of the G3 rotor



Powered by the dynohub, the Schmidt Edelux on the fork crown puts more usable light on the pavement than the pair of DiNotte 200Ls on the bars. It puts a smooth, even six-foot wide rectangle out further than the DiNottes. The DiNottes light up to the sides and signs above better, but they don't light up the actual road as well.



The distinctive twin reflectors and center LED of the dyno-powered Busch & Müller D’toplight XS Plus mounted to the rack’s taillight mount, and the DiNotte 140R-AA-R mounted between the rack leg and fender.

There really is something to the wider-rims-ride-better thing. The old rims were 20mm, the new ones are 24mm. With the same 28mm tires, the bike rides much better than it did before. And these wheels are stronger than the stock ones.

Rear wheel came in at the same weight as the stock wheel, 1,190 grams including rotor and rim tape, despite gaining 33% more spokes. Front wheel doesn't compare so well due to the dynohub. The new one is 1,425 grams including rotor and rim tape.

10 Wheels

Nice Pics.

thorsteno

Nice pair of wheels there. I thought the rims were wet. The scheme reminds me of a starry night on the bike of course. I'm interested why you think the ride is better on wider rims. I wouldn't have guessed a difference existed. Glad to hear you are pleased with the Edelux as I hope to buy one or a Supernova soon. At what speed do you reach full constant light output?

tsl

Thanks. I really like the finish on the hoops.

The wider rims spread the bead which straightens the sidewall a bit. This makes a wider contact patch and changes the way the sidewall flexes and allows additional flex. The additional volume also lets you run slightly lower pressures. All this contributes to improved ride quality. They're even making wider rims now for the 23mm tire crowd, hawking the same benefits.

As for the Edelux, it conforms with EU regs that say all dynamo headlights should reach full rated brightness by 6 MPH. I can confirm this in actual use. All EU-legal lights should do the same. Now, by underrating the light, you can achieve that and still have it get brighter at higher speeds. The Edelux seems to do this. Decent, steady, usable light comes out at 5 MPH, it's really great by 7 MPH and seems to improve *slightly* to 10 or 12 mph. Beyond that, while there may be measurable increases according to their literature, it's too modest for my eyes to detect.

daven1986

Love it, hope my bikes turns out as well as yours has

CCrew

Nice! What Bontrager tire is that on the third pic??

clasher

Beauty eh! I've been dreaming of building up a wheelset along these lines soon... how much did it all cost you, and did you do the build yourself or were they built for you?

HardyWeinberg

sweet setup.

tsl

Bontrager Jones CXR cyclocross tire. We've been chasing MTBs around off-road on Tuesday nights.

PM me if you're interested in one of my old stock wheelsets.

Hubs were $140 each, hoops $80 each (other finishes are cheaper), rotors were $40 for the ISO and $50 for the CenterLock, and $48 of spokes per wheel, minus my bike club discount, and plus labour. My LBS built them.

The Alfine is Shimano's most expensive dynohub, BTW. I was pretty surprised how cheap. I'd been looking at the Schmidt SON. If you're on a budget, other Shimano models are even less. And of course, you can get rotors for a lot, lot less than $90. I wanted stainless and I wanted them to be the same, despite one being CenterLock and the other being ISO six-bolt. My LBS suggested the Avid G3s and I liked the look, so that's what I bought.

Thanks!

JanMM

Very groovy!

jayfromqns

Awesome! The Trek Portland is a great bike, and you made it even better by adding an Alfine hub to it.

Giro

Very nice. I am probably going to get a Velocity VXC rim for a wheel build this winter.

Only thought I have is if there is a similar tire with a reflective sidewall, at least for the front wheel. I think it helps to something that immediately identifies you as a bicycle/wheeled vehicle as soon as you are detected, rather than the standard reflector between the spokes. With disc brakes, I suppose you could run reflective tape around the side of the rim, but that would cover up the nice Spangeled Silver finish.

tsl

Yeah, with decent wheels and a dynohub, it's finally become the bike it was meant to be.


I respect that, and lots of people agree with you. I'm of the opinion that if I'm passing that close to the front of a moving car coming at me from the side, then I've already made a mistake that a reflector isn't going save me from.

thermador

wow, great wheelset! expensive but very functional. i didn't know that there was a disc-specific Alfine hub - very cool!

tsl

The Alfine dynohub is not disc-specific. It has a little rubber ring that covers the the disc mount. Hard to see in the this pic, but it's there. Just pop it off and instant CenterLock.



And yeah, I could have saved money on the hoops, rotors, dynohub, and even the spokes. I could also have ordered the parts online myself and saved the LBS markup. But I'm very happy with the finished product.

TRUMPHENT

Very nice. Disc brakes do have a dark side. Wheel bearing wear. I just discovered my front wheel bearings are going. The one on disc side of the hub is quite playful now and I am searching for solution, an LBs that can replace them quickly and affordably. Keep the brakes adjusted. The load on the bearins is very lopsided on a disc brake hub while braking. It's insidious but, it is there. I would love to see how your wheels cope. Hopefully, they will be better at this than mine.

My wheels are Ringle High Riders. 700c 27mm rims, 6 bolt disc, disc brake only rims, sealed cartridge bearings.

I will admit that my riding style does not extend life to components. Your mileage may vary, considerably.

tsl

I discovered this on the Portand's stock wheelsets, which had traditional loose-ball bearings.

The Velocity hub on the rear of this set uses cartridge bearings. I'll be laying in a supply of spare bearings by springtime. Fortunately for my stock-keeping purposes, all four bearings are the same.

The Shimano dynohub uses traditional loose-ball bearings. I've followed threads here and elsewhere regarding bearing wear and service on dynohubs. It's hard to get a handle on it since dynos are so rare, some people quote miles, some quote years, and everyone's conditions vary. Plus none of them seem to have disk brakes. So I guess I'm the one who gets to find out how this does.

What I have found in following those threads is that LBSs without experience with Shimano dyno hubs seem to screw up the hub when they service it. Not the bearings, but the windings and electrical aspects of it.

I kept two of the stock wheelsets so that winter tire changes would be quicker and easier. Over the course of two years commuting on them, I also found it was nice to have a second set to use when a wheel needed service. The plan is to build a second set of these wheels for the same reasons, when budget permits.