seely

Hi from Velocity HQ.

For what its worth, right now we've got a few sets of our hand built 36h Dyad "blem" sets left at $199.99. The Dyad has been a favorite among Clydes for road use. It's 24mm wide, and works great with 25c+ tires. The Dyad is a mid weight rim, but has been a long time favorite among touring cyclists and heavier riders.

Dyad "blem" deal: Velocity - Dyad Touring Commuter Sport Wheelset 700c - *blemished*

If you're looking for maximum strength, weight be damned, the Chukker is a good rim but I would suggest looking at either the NoBS or the Atlas rim in a 36h configuration. The Atlas is eyeletted and available in a few finishes, the NoBS is un-eyeletted and only comes in a "mill" (raw) finish. They are both incredibly strong, but come in a bit lighter than the Chukker. The extra width will open up the tire a bit allowing you to ride a bit lower pressure with less chance of a pinch flat. You can run 28c+ tires no problem on either rim.

Atlas: Velocity Wheels

NoBS: Velocity Wheels

indyfabz

You beat me to it.

illusiumd

Yes, that's what I assume too. Bike use is city commuting, lakefront riding, occaisional pothole that I didn't avoid. I *think* the rims don't look bent, just out of true so much that they almost lock on the brake. Thanks for the advice!!

GravelMN

Building a properly true, tensioned and stress relieved wheel takes a fair amount of time and expertise. Just about anyone can learn to lace a hub to a rim, but unless they know what they are doing and take the time to do it, you won't get anything better than a factory rim. Hand-built is only as good as the hands that built it.

32H Open Sport laced 3x to a Tiagra hub won't be a bombproof wheel but properly built should hold up pretty well, even at Clyde weights, as long as you aren't jumping curbs or crashing through potholes. When I build my own wheels I ride them a few times and then recheck and fine tune true and tension. From that point on I have never had to retrue or tension one that wasn't in a mishap and have never broken a spoke. Whenever I service the hubs, once or twice a year depending on the bike, I throw them on the truing stand and spot check the tensions, but even as OCD as I am, they rarely need any tweeking.

I find that 36H Mavic Open Pros on 105 hubs or 719s on Deore or LX hubs laced 4X with DTSwiss Comp spokes make very clydeworthy wheels.

bigfred 

O.K. Unless you've already spoken with your LBS, I have an Rx for you.

First: Check the realative tension of all your non-drive side spokes. Simply go around the wheel, plucking each spoke identically, to the best of your ability. Listen to see if they all produce the same tone. This may uncover if one of more of the NDS spokes has backed off and is loose. This is probably the most likely reason for your out of true condition.

It's easy enough to fix the above condition by simply tightening the offending spoke(s) until the wheel is back in true. However, this will be a short lived repair, unless the tension on each and every spoke is equal and of sufficient degree to ensure they don't go slack during lateral flex of the wheel.

Assuming you find a loose spoke or two.

Secondly: Head to you LBS with rear wheel in hand. Speak with the manager or owner. Inform him that you wouldn't be unhappy with this wheel if it simply remained true and that to the best of your understanding there is no reason why it shouldn't be up to the task of supporting you. Demonstrate to him the loose drive side spokes. Suggest that you have done some reading about wheels and to the best of your understanding what you are looking for is average Drive Side tension of not less than 110 kilograms of force and with a standard deviation on that side of not more than 7 kgf. Ask if they have a Park TM-1 tension meter or other tension meter. If they have the Park tool, Park has a handy, free spreadsheet available on their website that makes recording and achieving this easy.

Assuming that everything is still going swimming with the manager/owner, suggest that this might be as excellent a learning experience for his staff as it is becoming one for you.

With regard to NDS, you would like to see at least 55kgf, which is easily realistic at 110kgf on the DS. Ideally you would like 65-70kgf on the NDS. But, this will require greater than 110KGF on the DS. See if the mechanic can achieve 120kgf or so before the rim starts to collapse into a potato chip/taco shape. If at any point the rim starts getting hard to keep true as the tension goes up, he should back the tension off a bit.

Keep in mind that if the mechanic isn't familliar with all this, it will take him longer to achieve this than the manager/owner can afford via the margin on these affordable wheels. But, it will be an excellent investment in that mechanic actually learning how to create a truly durable wheel instead of simply twisting nipples until things don't rub on the truing stand.

If your LBS bawks at this suggestion. Find a new one.

Third: Print this post and take it with you.

Fourth: Things to watch out for. The LBS mechanic may suggest various short cuts that should be unnecessary if they take the approach above. These include the use of lock tight on the nipples, various forms of dope or sealant, crimping the nipples lightly with pliers, etc. Don't accept or encourage such approaches. They are short cut band aids employed by those who don't know how or are unwilling to do the job correctly. Which is the equalization of the spoke tensions on any given side of the wheel. At this point I have built enough wheels for myself, friends, club members, fellow group ride participants and clydes to know that satisfactory results can be achieved for the life of the rims braking surface with the use of nipples lubricated with oil, bees wax, grease or, if you really aren't very good or working with already used and abused components "spoke prep" (which is really just coloured plumbers dope).

I hope you find this helpful and educational. I also hope that your LBS comes through for you on this. It sounds like, if you can guide them to the land of enlightenment with regard to clyde wheels, they might be of service to others as well. Because, it sounds as though, currently, they are doing a disservice to LBSs.

illusiumd

I just want to thank everyone here for the time they've taken to help me out and educate me on all this. I'm a computer nerd and now I know what people standing in line at Geeksquad or Microcenter feel like.

BigFred, yeah they don't take kindly to advice from a newb. I remember the first time I took the original wheel in and asked them to check the spoke tension thoroughly... yeah, no go on that. They just thew a wheel on there without even checking that it matched the wheel they were replacing. If they're going to replace a 36h with a 32h - something tells me they're just not paying attention. When I saw that chrome stem on the black handlebar - I hate to keep harping on that - but it's just a tell-tale sign of ADD. My bike friend pointed out that every picture of this bike in existence shows a black cockpit. They quoted me black cockpit parts. I digress.

But thanks for that detailed info! If I go to a new LBS, I'll definitely take that post with me.

They're a crazy busy shop in a busy Chicago neighborhood. It looks like they do a ton of repair work on fixies and old commuters, and judging from my experience they must not sell that many new bikes - let alone build custom bikes. I will say they're pretty nice guys, which makes this whole ordeal more painful. The manager is eager to make things right, it's just that he can just never get it right.

As far as finding a new LBS, I just bought this bike from these guys in June so I feel sort of chained to them... how can I get away?

bigfred 

You don't have to abandone them in all regards. Just with regards to wheel work.

Start a thread here in the Clydesdale forum entitled something to the effect of: Clyde worthy Wheelsmith needed In Chicagoland Area

We've got a few clydes in the forum from your area. Surely someone will know the name of an excellent wheelsmith who, "gets it".

illusiumd

What sort of blemish are we talking?

Education continues. Because I wanted Road + Light Touring the LBS set me up with this Soma ES + Apex Road group - which I've found out means that the brake calipers only let you go so wide right? 28 tire is what I'm looking at as the biggest for that brake combo...

illusiumd

Sweet, thanks. I bet these guys could build wheels, but for this low $ wheels they just put on store bought?

seely

The blems are usually cosmetic scuffing or in the anodization. In most cases, its hardly noticeable and nothing you wouldn't expect to see on a wheel after a season of riding. Road calipers should accomodate the wider rim no problem. At most, you would be looking at a 2mm difference in width from something like our A23 rim, which is pretty standard for road rims.

JohnJ80

Exactly right, they just are not great at building wheels. It's a tiny percentage of customers that come in to buy a new set of wheels. All bike mechanics fancy themselves as great wheel builders which is pretty much not true unless they do it a lot. The places that do it a lot a few and far between. Most of the time it's fine but in a Clyde situation, if there is going to be a problem, that's where it's going to be.

My LBS is fantastic, but they can't do as good of a job as a place that builds thousands of wheels a year. So I buy my wheels from places like Excelsports.com that do thousands of wheels a year and has several full time wheel builders going all the time. They are cheaper and, most importantly, they are better and more reliable. It's not a knock on that particular LBS, it's just a matter of repetition that they couldn't possible achieve.

J.

RR3

Clydes on factory wheels with 23mm tires don't match. Better off riding 28mm at least and riding hand tensioned wheels by someone who knows what they are doing.

bigfred 

Fortunately I can't agree with you. The notion that one needs to build hundreds or thousands of wheels to do a good job is what was responsible for me delaying my entry into wheel truing and building. But, that's simply not true. A dedicated enthusiat, or shop mechanic, can, with the use of a tension meter and some patience, provide just as excellent an end result as someone building thousands of wheels per year.

There are plenty of home builders on this very forum who prove this point.

Unfortunately, it seems that in this case the LBS simply isn't interested in investing that hour or so in tension equalizing the rear wheel they sold. Which is a real pitty.

JohnJ80

You, presuming your wheels are good, are the exception. Repetition is key to being able to do almost any repetitive manufacturing task profitably and well.

So here's the question: As a consumer, given a choice between a source that has built many, many wheels successfully and one that occasionally builds them, which one would you pick? Which one has a higher probability of getting it right?

J.

Wilfred Laurier

calm down ladies
youre both right

the difference is
an enthusiast can spend the time to make his very first wheel perfect

but in a commercial environment
you either do it fast
or you are losing money
and only businesses who are expecting or planning to do many many wheels
will invest the time into ensuring wheels are done both properly
and fast

JohnJ80

I agree with this.

J.

bigfred 

Keeping this directed at the OPs situation in particular and not wheel building in general:

He purchased a Soma frame spec'ed with "Dimension" built wheels. The original wheels will not have been hand built by the LBS. The original wheels were probably machine built and at best hand finished. If that. Chances are very low that they recieved any stress relieving. Subsequently, they and any subsequent wheels will be a bit of a crap shoot with regard to durability under a clyde. These are the very sort of wheels that many shops suggest you bring in for a "check", after the first couple hundred miles and usually tension and true them at that point.

When the first wheel went out of true after very few miles, the shop declared it to be a "warranty" issue and substituted another new wheel. This wheel has also gone out of true in under a month. No surprise there.

These aren't expensive wheels at $244 in the total build cost. But, there's no reason Mavic Open Sport rims in 32 or 36 spokes shouldn't be up to the task of supporting a 240lbs clyde. They are a 490 gram triple channel, eyeleted and pinned rim. These are the very sort of rims I used to rely on before I found better wheelsmiths who could keep single box construction rims true for me.

A reasonable mechanic/wheel builer/wheelsmith should be able to stress relieve, true and tension equalize an already built in wheel a half hour or so. At worst, it shouldn't take him an entire hour. If it does, he needs to be looking for a new occupation.

At a shop rate of $75/hr and the inital cost of $244 for the wheelset there isn't a lot of margin for the shop manager to invest lots of shop time in said wheels. But, they weren't purchased singlularly. They were part of an entire bike purchase and should be part of any after purchase service that would normally accompany such a sale.

The LBS really should address the need to stress relieve and tension equalize the wheels they sell to clydes. Either as part of the initial sales agreement or at a reasonable, break even, shop rate after the sale.

It's very discouraging to me that the OP is finding himself in a position where he feels the correct response is to purchase more wheels. I have confidence that the guys at Velocity USA will ensure their wheels are well built. Specially if they know they are going to a clyde who is active on internet forums. But, the OP should have to use that option. Or, any other for that matter.

The LBS should be coming to the table to "service" their client. "Service" and personal "expertice" are supposed to be the things that set LBSs apart and allow them to compete with internet sales.

The OP believes that the manager wants to make things right. But, the shop is busy and they fail on the previous concern.

OP, please, use this as an opportunity to improve the situation for yourself as well as every other clyde that walks thru the doors of this particular LBS. Use your patience. Ask the manager for his patience and that of one of his better mechanics. In doing so, you're really not asking for "too much". You're demanding the bare minimum that any customer should be able to expect.

If the manager says something to the effect of, "well, we don't have any margin on the stuff we sold you and all we can afford to do is shift the warranty burden onto our distributor. Who sells us supposedly "ready to ride" wheels." I encourage you to ask about exactly how little after sales support you can expect on a product that was just recently purchased from them.

If the manager is at all responsive to all this and while you have him in the corner of trying to makes things right by you, don't hesitate to ask if it's too much to ask for the black stem that was originally spec'ed on the sales contract and that would help make the bike "look right".

Regardless of your level of cycling ignorance, this stuff is no more rocket science than most the questions that the GeekSquad probably face. You're asking for the cycling equivelent of your custom configured laptop booting up properly and not suffering a blue screen of death every couple weeks, requiring a subsequent restore, when you just purchased the thing a month or two ago.

You're asking them to deliver what you purchased and paid for: A functional bicycle.

RR3

Used to build my own when money was tight. Now it is not worth it. Problem is finding someone you trust and who won't insist on particular components like spokes, rims, hubs. I thought I found a builder until he would only use Sapim CX on front and non-drive side. Drive side had to be straight gage. These were 32H. I only build with these two rims. Sort of take it or leave it. The hubs sit awaiting a meastro. I should just build them up myself. The low cost to build them scares the crap out of me. Either they are making slave wages or they are slapping the wheels together. Maybe both.

sstorkel

It takes me long enough to build wheels that I couldn't do it profitably. But the wheels I've built myself have held up better than any other wheelset I own, including those assembled by some highly regarded professional builders.

I don't allow LBS employees anywhere near my wheels! They don't build wheels often and can't afford the time it takes to do the job properly, in my experience. That's a recipe for poor results. These days, I either build wheels myself or buy them from someone who does almost nothing other than wheel building.

illusiumd

Thanks bigfred for writing such a good summation!

JohnJ80

If this is the situation, then push as hard as you can to rectify the problems and then never go back there again.

J.

cafzali

Like any universal statement, this one's not necessarily "law." I had trouble with the stock wheels on my first road bike, which were relatively low cost Bontrager's. I upgraded to the next strongest, still didn't work. For that bike, I went custom and they've been find. However, a few years later, I got a Giant bike that had DT Swiss R1700s as the stock wheel and they've been "the bomb." I've now got more miles on that bike than I had on the Trek through all wheel versions and the DT Swiss wheels haven't been touched.

illusiumd

UPDATE.

This LBS offered to replace both wheels with Tiagra/Chukker/36h for a small price. I agreed. Went to pick up bike today. Told them about another problem I'm having - a "rubbing" in the crankset. Manager (who've I've been going endlessly round and round with) told me it was likely pedals - and so - long story short - ended up with new wheels and a new pedal. Was content.

Left LBS and within three minutes totally wiped out. On the pavement - that feeling you get after you totally wipe out where you're blood is just pumping a million different directions at once - some shock in there too -

Looked down and saw that the new pedal had come off. I'm so fortunate I just have cuts and bruises at this point. No major damage as far as I can tell. Lucky I wasn't in Chicago traffic when I completely collapsed when the pedal came off.

So yeah, I've totally ****ing had it with these guys. I think they're probably good mechanics - but they're just too busy, too loaded on coffee (or coke?) and too ADD. They're trying to do a million things at once. I lost my mind on the manager and his response was, "I'm sorry - but I'm trying so hard with all these things you're asking - and I'm bound to make mistakes..."

Can you for the love of GOD believe that? A couple of the other mechanics were standing around - no one asked me if I was all right.

So I reply and tell him that that's the problem - that they're all too eager to fix issues and don't take enough time to make sure they've fixed it properly. I told him that I want to return the whole bike, that I have no faith in how they built it (it's a custom Soma ES) and that I just want to break up with them. Give me my money back and let's pretend we never met.

He looked at me and said, "ok." I told him to keep the bike and that I'd call in a day or two after I've calmed down.

I just have no faith in any part of that bike now. It's just too crazy. What did I do to the bike Gods!

The really sad thing is that I have to spend even more time obsessing and thinking about this bull****. UGH.

FrenchFit 

Yep, I'm sub-Clyde now but was riding 16/20 and 20/24 at 235lbs , zero problems. I also have a 27" 40h rear wheel on my old Voyageur, sweet load carrier. I say go Big or go Small, but avoid the 'tweener wheelsets like 32h, they merely offer the illusion of strength.

JohnJ80

Any bike shop that can't properly install a pedal has probably made a lot more errors as well. It doesn't get anymore basic than that. There can be no shortcuts on the things that represent customer safety. I think if you can back out of this with them, you'll both be a lot happier. So I like your idea of being done with each other - and you'll probably be a lot safer for it. I think you're right, there's probably at least one other major problem in there somewhere. Not to mention when you bring the bike back for it's 30 day tuneup after the cables stretch. Do you really trust them to get this right? The only way this works is if you are confident enough to look over bike work and tell if it's right.

My LBS, for example, re-torques/tests torque of stem bolts any time someone just brings a bike they sold into their shop. Every one of their guys carry one of those 5nm fixed torque wrenches in their pocket. They don't want to see you hurt and they are focused on safety being #1 . They do it without asking. They test ride everything that they do - it's shop policy. Yes, they have a backlog of work but it's also work that gets done right and doesn't need to be redone.

I don't know what the LBS situation is around you, but ask around and see what people recommend. Ask some serious cyclists - they'll know who's hot and who's not. These guys sound downright scary.

J.