My work, your wheels

End of December, Christmas break & New year... it's time to slow down, take take some break, summarize the current year and make plans for the next one.
I personally like this time a lot. 

Using this opportunity I wanted to share with you how do I make my wheels so you understand a bit what is happening behind the scenes. 
I think it's really important for you too see how the wheels are made @ my workshop so when you take one you ride them with full confidence and smile on your face.

Ready for the story? So let's get started :-)

DT Swiss wheels for Dawid from Triglav

It's been a pleasure and my honor to build new wheels for Dawid, the founder of Triglav company. 

Mountain wheels for Mark

Mark found me via google and contacted me regarding the wheels project. He was looking for light and price attractive wheels for his mountain bike. He is a beginner and rather rides on easy trails, without extreme jumping nor bombing down hills...

After few emails exchanges I decided to make him the wheels from the following components:

• BOR XMD 333 rims, 650 size with offset
• Shimano Deore XT hubs (15x100, 12x142)
• DT Swiss Competition black spokes
• Sapim silver brass 12mm nipples

Catrike wheel

From time to time I see those bikes on the street but I'd never think that I'll be building a wheel for such exotic bike.

Roval wheels rescue - mission accomplished ;-)

Some time ago I was writing about a project to replace rims and spokes in Roval wheels. 

This weekend mission has been accomplished and wheels got their new life. 

Valais - La Cyclosportive des Vins du Valais and road to nowhere

August was a month of Valais - windy but nice region with beautiful landscape.
 

Roval wheels rescue

Nic came to me recently with his nice Roval wheels. After closer look we found the following:

Wheels for Sandro

Sandro contacted me to build the every-day / occasional race wheels for him. Light, strong and price attractive - those were the main requirements for this project.

Classic steel city bike & wheels project

From time to time I'm getting unique and unusual request to build specific wheels. Each project like that is very exciting as it's breaking up the routine in similar/same wheels build

This time Alex came to me with the task to build the wheels which would match to his steel city bike project where the main objective is simplicity and minimalism in lack of cables & wires as much as possible.

Emosson - cold welcome

Lac d'Émosson - who've been there knows that's really beautiful place. It's one of the must on your to-do list when you're around Sion / Martigny. 

Le col du Grand-Saint-Bernard

Today's lesson learnt is: never underestimate Alps ;-)

Warmed up by yesterday's Brevet and having already bike packed in the car I decided to continue discovering of unknown passes yet.

After quick packing consisting of two bottles of water and one banana and followed by small breakfast I was ready for new adventure.

I always wanted to cycle up to St. Bernard's col as I was crossing this pass several times by car going to Italy. By car it seems to be very small mountain so I thought it will be perfect loop for bit tired legs.

I don't remember when last time I was so wrong...

The Saint Bernard is a beautiful pass connecting Switzerland and Italy however it's not so flat as I thought. It's about 25km of climbing to reach to finally reach 2473m altitude. 

Alpenbrevet Silver loop with Bulldogs crew

While there are many on-going wheel projects which I should share more info on my blog long time ago...

Rainy beginning of July

July came to Switzerland with lots of clouds and rain. 
Not so great beginning of cycling holidays but from other hand there was a great opportunity to test my carbon rims in real rainy conditions.

Col de Corbier & Abondance

Today during Saturday's loop I had a real pleasure to cycle with "Blonay Bulldogs" club members.

Ride was really nice with decent climbing & descending planned with "German precision" thanks to Matthias

Carbon wheels for David

Since today David is enjoying his brand new, custom made wheels. 

Weekend as usual

Building wheels makes me relax, while testing them gives a lot of adrenaline and I think the second part is a more pleasant part of the job.

The carbon wheels I mentioned few posts back are doing very well. It's over 1k. km on them and LOT of climbing and descending in a hot days. 

I felt very so confident with them that I pulled the trigger and ordered a bigger batch from the manufacturer. 
Soon I shall have them back on stock and ready for build(s).

Meantime, enjoy some photos from last two rides

Best aero/wide aluminum rims in the market?

Most of us are looking for similar things in terms of road wheels - stiffness, aero benefits, weight and recently width - wide rims became popular recent days...

During that weekend I was able to build two sets of wheels based on newest Kinlin XR-31T rims.

Spontaneous loop

I'm struggling with the flu since almost two weeks now. I can't get rid of it, maybe because I have no time to lay in the bed and simply take some rest. 

This week was pretty busy, several wheel-sets were finished and of course daily job in the corporation... blah...

Today, since the weather was good, I decided to go for small spin on flat, just to stretch the legs... well, that was the plan. Obviously that plan didn't work at all: 

Back to the roots

From time to time it's good to step back and go back to the roots. Today I finished very traditional and beautiful wheelset composed from H plus Son Archetype rims and DT Swiss components.

Reliable carbon clinchers

It took me a while to finish research among many manufacturers for reliable carbon rims, which wouldn't break a bank.
While most of such manufacturers are located in China, I was also able to find and check few ones located in Europe, mainly Netherlands, Germany and France

Wheels without bullsh*t

Wheels which I'm building are ridden by me, on daily basis. 
They are tested hard on climbs, descends, bad surfaces, in sun, snow, rain and whatever else can happen you on the road.

This is the best and most true reassurance of my work I can give you

This weekend was pretty busy. Finally carbon clinchers are done.
Sneak peak preview here:

Affordable road wheels for mountain climbing and fast descends...part II

Few posts ago I was mentioning about the project of road light and stiff wheels for climbing

I did one set for my customer and loved wheels so much that I decided to build one for myself

Of course, I customized a bit the build by giving two white spokes to each wheel so all would match to my ritchey road logic which has white handlebar, stem and seatpost. 
Two blue nipples on each wheel are matching to my bartape which is light-blue colour

Weekend

Plan for the weekend was very ambitious... finish two sets of the wheels, cut & prep spokes for carbon build, update blog, cut & prep decals.. etc.

Saturday morning sun came out in Switzerland and so the sky became blue, really blue.
As a consequence workshop got closed and I spent two full days on the road ;-)

Wheels for Alex

Today, set of classy Kinlin wheels went to Alex. 
Clean build, semi-aero, light weight (1430g) laced radially on front and 2x on rear will be mounted on renovated steel road frame.

Pacenti Forza

One of the idea of this blog is to collect here a list of solid, good rims and sub components.

Talking about solid rims,  very recently Pacenti released their new rim called Forza. Forza is the successor of SL23 rim, which was very well perceived by builders and the end users.

Although Forza/SL23 are a bit on heavy side with low profile, they give unique ride feeling and are targeted for every day use.

Affordable road wheels for mountain climbing and fast descends...

One of my cycling buddies asked me to build a good pair of wheels for him which would be light, stiff, perfect for long climbing in the saddle and would not break the bank

Blackcat wheels - logo ;-)

First version of logo arrived ;-) feeling so proud!

This is the small one which will go on hubs and in some cases rims if they are labeled already


The other version, long which will go among the rim is still work in progress. Hopefully it will be ready by end of April. 

That should solve the often dilemma of the customers who don't really like OEM 'naked' rims

T.

New player in gravel world

Being Polish, I have to share a great news:

Those beauties are made by bunch of Polish folks. 
RONDO bikes are very special and unique on the market as they allow to adjust geometry in one click. 
Besides that they have plenty of space for fat gravel tires. 

Sounds ideal no?

Check more details on bikerumor or their site (you may want to use translator) 

https://www.bikerumor.com/2017/03/07/bfs2017-rondo-ruut-adjustable-geometry-fat-gravel-bikes-eu-upstart-carbon-alloy-steel/


https://www.7anna.pl/RONDO-Nowa-marka-Road-Plus-i-Gravel-news-pol-1488455894.html

Cross my fingers for their success!

Carbon wheels

If all will go well, I should soon have in my offer a solid carbon wheels. 
Rims are coming directly from Chinese manufacturer and they are HTG 320 type. HTG stands for High Resistance Temperature and 320 means 320 degrees. 

Typically most of carbon rims are safe till 250 degrees. 
I've seen some cases where carbon clincher melted during long descending in a hot day, therefore it took me a while to find a reliable manufacturer with safe clincher rims.

The ones which I'll be using, have much higher temperature resistance so they will be perfect for high climbs and descends. 

Rim profile is wide, perfectly suitable for 25mm tire

I plan to pair those with Bitex hubs and Sapim CX-Ray spokes by default. 

Price tag should be around 650CHF
Wheels would be available for traditional brakes (clincher / tubular) and disc brakes

First pair is reserved for myself ;-) I'll be putting here a long distance review and will report how do they handle


Stay tuned!

Kinlin rims

It's been more than few times when people are asking about Kinlin rims and why I'm using them in my wheels.

The brand is not so well known in the consumer world, however it's one of the most appreciated brands in wheel builders space

H plus Son 42mm wheels

Today one of my favorite wheels found a new owner. 

I really like H plus Son rims and their SL42mm rim is a real pleasure to work with.

About me

So... since you came to this post it means that either you're looking for good pair of wheels or you simply enjoy my photos and scenery... anyhow it would be good if you'd know a bit about me ;-)

First of all I love riding my bikes, not a surprise hugh?. 
I use every single, little and big occasion to hop on my bike and enjoy the ride. 

The place where I live - Swiss Alps - is very tempting and  it's just perfect for cycling. 

 However it's not always easy to find a free moment as working @ one of the biggest corporation in the world and being father of two small and demanding kids is already an interesting challenge :-)

I'm using two steel bikes which I own and built by myself: 

Ritchey Logic

Cotic X

I love road cycling and adore gravel/adventure. 

I'm writing that so I want let you know that apart of 'normal' cycling I'm also testing and ridding wheels that I build. 
I really like and want to get familiar with all those new types of rims, hubs and spokes I introduce to my builds, so I have full confidence in my products. 

More about those things a bit later.

Cheers
Tomasz

Introduction...

Hello world ;-)

First of all, welcome to my 2in1 blog & page.

This will be my testimonial, the place where I'll be describing my cycling adventures including wheels builds.
I hope you will find here an inspiration for cycling, answer to your questions, mainly around wheels and much more than that.
 

So take a cup of good coffee and enjoy the reading

Cheers

T.