Help deciding between wheel set and hubs
 

I am upgrading my track/fixed gear bike and want nicer wheels/hubs. There are two that I have my eye on, based on prices mainly. It's between:

H plus Son Archetype w/ DURA ACE 7600 TRACK HUBS

vs.

VELOCITY A23 WHITE INDUSTRIES HIGH FLANGE TRACK HUBS

What are your thoughts on these two? I'll be using a front brake, possible a rear brake too.

Thanks!!

Having had dura ace hubs, unless you just love to clean/replace bearings all the time, meh. They really require a full cleaning ever 3 months or so, which usually means replacing the balls, which can add up over time. And it's just a huge nuisance when you just want to ride your low maintenance single speed bike.

That said I think H+son makes nicer rims than velocity. The Archetypes sure look 10x better too.

Both of those have straight gauge spokes, which imo is lame. Nice rims and nice hubs with bottom of the barrel spokes.

What are you talking about ... You don't need to service loose ball hubs every three months...or replace bearings that often. I have Araya formula wheels from the 80s that I'm pretty sure still have the factory bearings that I serviced over 8 months ago and spins fine.
a properly serviced hub will not need that kind of routine service...

Guess scrod was right to never listen to you.
also there is nothing wrong with straight gauge spokes.

also science both of those are very nice wheelsets.

difference being in hubs mostly and aesthetics.

one having a sealed hub the velocities while the hplusson having unsealed dura ace hubs which do need maintenance but nothing like what stryper was describing.

Can't go wrong either way, really. And yeah, straight gauge spokes are marginally heavier but also marginally stiffer than butted spokes if that matters to you. I'd probably go with the H+ set just because of quality control stories I've heard about Velocity rims recently.

Thanks for the replies! If i'm going to invest that much mine as well go for some double butted. How are these:

H PLUS SON FORMATION FACE SILVER PHIL WOOD TRACK HUBS WHEELSET


Also with those wheels, having the shiny rims, will I still be able to use a brake?

You cannot use brakes on Formation Face rims. Doing so will eventually weaken the sidewall.

If you want to use brakes, H+Son makes a rim called the SL42 that has the same specs as the Formation Face but it has a reinforced, parallel braking surface.

The dura ace hubs are great. I have them serviced about once a year with no issue. I don't ride in poor weather conditions very frequently, and never in snow. Laced to cxp22 rims with butted spokes. Can't comment on the White industries hub.

Thanks Scrod!

I don't own a car, so my bike was rain or shine, paved or dirt, so yeah cleaning the hubs often was necessary. The grease was browner/dirty when I opened them up, which means there were particles in there, even if they still spin smooth. If you only ride on clean streets in the sunshine, then I'm sure you can go longer without service. When you clean them though, it's appropriate to replace the balls (you don't have to if the balls are still perfectly shiny, but it's easy and only a couple bucks). It's a must of you use a pen magnet or magnetic dish to remove or hold the balls.

And no there is nothing "wrong" with straight gauge spokes, but they build a less comfortable and heavier wheel.

Thanks for the advice you guys. I ended up going with the Velocity A23 and white industry hubs. I especially liked the idea of buying from companies based in the USA. However after reading more into them I am concerned because I believe the are the newer "tubeless" version, and I absolutely planned on using normal tubes and tires with them.

Thus does anyone have any experience with these "newer" styles? From what i've read using 23 tires and tubes on them people are having problems with flat tires. From the velocity web site it's not totally clear on what to do if you want to use tubes with these rims.

They say that the "veloplugs" don't work on the rims, and i've read that even rim tape for others is not sufficient. Is there something fundamentally wrong with these rims?

Thanks for any input!

I don't think there's anything wrong with the rims. They just require tubeless tires.

They don't require tubeless tires, just look at how many people use these on pedalroom.com w/ out tubeless tires. Do you have velocity A23 or experience with them?

A23 rims can easily be converted for use with tubeless tires but they are certainly not "required".

The rims are tubeless-ready. We do not recommend the use of cloth or any thicker rim tape with the A23 due to the tubeless ready rim profile. Many people do use Velox, but in our experience it can make tire mounting more difficult. I've not had an issue, though, with a variety of tapes. The stuff I'm currently running is a very thin woven cloth I got at the surplus store for $1.99 a roll, works great.

As far as flats go, the only way a rim can cause a flat is manufacturing defect, like a burr at the valve hole. When building a wheel, I always carefully check all the spoke holes and valve hole for burrs and clean it up as necessary.

Thanks Scrod! I ended up ordering 25 tires, especially after reading some of your posts about enjoying the bigger set on your All City. Hopefully i'll have less problems with those.

Thanks a lot for the advice. I'll purchase some thin rim tape. For A23, what size is best? Would 17mm be sufficient?

No problem -- the tape we use is actually a 21mm tape, which covers the A23 sidewall to sidewall just about perfectly. As you're taping them, keep some tension on the tape to "stretch" it a bit and it should fit nicely. I've also heard of people using 19-21mm Kapton tape which can be had fairly inexpensively.

I've always used 17mm Velox without any problems at all.