Silver is gold - wheels for Dirk

Building the wheels for a bike which has a special meaning for it's owner is something more than just a wheelset.

Dirk contacted me and asked for a nice wheels which would match to his Cannondale C600 bike. The bike has been in his family since 1994 and cannot be sold. It is quite ugly and dysfunctional right now, but the “Made in the USA” aluminium frame with nice smoothed welds is in mint condition and merits a rebuilt into a retro style commuter bike. The silver wheel set is the right beginning. Nitto parts from Japan are next. 

Making some research I gave couple of options and finally we came to the conclusion to use silver H+Son archetype with classy silver Novatec hubs. 

Since the bike will be used for commuting and occasional trips with the bags I suggested 32 spokes front and rear with 3x cross lacing so total weight of 85+kg won't be any issue. 

In order to keep the reasonable weight I used D-light spokes and brass nipples.

D-light spokes are very interesting ones. They measure 1.65mm in the middle section and 2.0mm on the ends. Tricky part is that the thread ends exactly before thin part of the spoke so you can't cut them.

Moreover if the spoke length is wrongly calculated there is a risk that the spoke will go totally through the nipple as shown above. Therefore the precision is the key. 

Knowing that I first ordered the rims and hubs, then measured all carefully and then ordered the proper spokes. 

The result is really good, perfect length:

Overall the wheels look very nice. All silver, with classy hubs and nice H+Son black decals touch.
Spokes are not too thick, not too thin, just in the sweet spot

As always I paid attention to work out the spoke elbows so they lay on the hub flanges. It's very time consuming but at the end spokes won't loose tension after the first rides.

Dirk, thanks for visiting me and choosing me to build your wheels.
All the best and enjoy the silver beauties :-)

Tomasz
blog-wheelbuilding