ENO built wheel - where to buy?
 

Fixie newbie here. I want to convert a vertical dropout bike to fixie, the price I got for ENO rear wheel is $210/$250. Are these the going prices? Am thinking, add a little more and you get a Kilo for $350.

Anybody has a line on ENO wheels for less?

That seems pretty fair for a wheel built with a $160 hub. Maybe contact Harris Cyclery and see what they'd charge.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/white-hubs.html

You might want to watch Ebay for the hub and maybe a rim then see how much a local shop would charge to build a wheel around it. Probably not much less than 200 for everything though. You might get the hub for around $100-110 and then a rim will be another 20-40 and then parts and labor.

Don't forget +/- $30 for spokes. Having a wheel custom built to save money is a loosing proposition unless you already have a hub and/or rim you want to use and are willing to do it yourself. It's almost always cheaper to buy something off the shelf if possible. That may be easier said than done with an eno hub, I haven't really looked.

Bikeman has the hubs for $129. Maybe they'll build you a wheel?

I built my enocentric wheel. Anyone can learn to build a wheel. Heck, anyone can build a wheel without even learning! Just go to sheldon's wheelbuild page and follow the instructions.

I build my own too, not to save $$$ but because I like too. Most charge $25 to $35 to build a wheel, thats not to bad considering the time it takes me to build one. :)

I really hope ENO's and functionally similar hubs drop in price as time goes on. Since road bikes have had vertical drops standard for about 20 years, eventually something's got to give. (Do they have a patent on it? I really hope that's not the case, patents can be really bad for innovation...nobody else can take an idea and improve upon it.)

When I was in Boston this summer someone was selling a Jamis road frameset with carbon stays for less than $150...something like that with fork ends would easily sell for +$400 used.

Yep, I have a CF frameset in perfect condition that I haven't been able to sell for $150. I've sold dozens of beat up straight gauge chromoly frames for around $100 and a few Reynolds 531 and equivalent frames for around $150. The horizontal dropout frames sell in no time flat no matter what I'm asking.

CF??? :eek: Please PM me.

Size?

If blickblocks does not want I might be interested.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but it's a 54 squared. PM me if interested.

Hijack the thread? This is SSFG! You can't hijack a thread on SSFG :D

Someone was selling a 1999 CF Trek with full Ultegra on Craigslist for $600 a few weeks back, while at the same time, several janky conversions and off-the-peg track bikes were selling for almost as much or more.

The world's gone mad.

^^^Thing is, track dropouts are so much more versatile than vertical dropouts. Unless you have an eccentric BB shell or an ENO hub, a vertical dropout bike is good only with derailer. A bike with track dropouts, or one with horisontal dropouts, or one with sliding dropouts, will be useful both for geared operation as well as for singlespped or FG -->> higher value, higher price.

thank you for all the replies...

Except that frames with track ends are not particularly versatile either since they almost always lack shifter bosses and cable stops and are not always drilled for a rear brake. Also, with vertical drops, you don't have to worry about the wheel sliding forward. The only time vertical dropouts don't make sense is if you're gonna run single speed and until recently SS was almost unheard of.

Maybe I have a distorted vision of things. My experience, which influences my thinking, has been that all my frames came with necessary protuberances and holes (bosses, brakeholes). The "problem" is that my frames are either SS MTB frames or conversions. These all have the desired features... that is, protuberances and cavities of which you speak of.

I don't have a single track frame, though. I admit to having made a conscious decision to avoid track frames, mostly because I like wider tyres. The lack of various hangers and braze-ons (usually these ARE drilled for a brake, though) is coincidental but reinforcing my abovementioned conscious decision.

So in my little world, track fropouts/horizontal dropouts = allround goodness. I'm sorry for those who experienced lack of goodness related to abovementioned dropouts. Use vertical dropouts, then, what can I say. I still think that there's a downward pressure for the price of frames with vertical dropouts, and I still maintain, therefore, that it's completely understandable that such frames, at least used, will cost less than the ones with track ends. This is just generally speaking, of course. I have been looking for a cheap frame for a long time, but the only cheap (new) frames I could find on eBay have all vertical dropouts. For example, there was this sweet scandium frame (more exactly, aluminum with a little bit of scandium thrown in to improve fatigue life), exactly the size I wanted, and the price was less than EUR 100. The guy had several of similar frames. But what good is that frame to me, with vertical dropouts? Nothing, sadly.

If you're ever going to build your own wheelset might as well do it with an ENO and open yourself to the world of vertical dropouts.

I guess you missed the post where I said I built a rear wheel with an ENOcentric. But since the hub itself costs more than the frames I see on eBay, it's a proposition that no more appeals to me.