Midhook tubeless wheels with Soul

High number of spokes makes strong wheel. Everything  beyond 20/24 for rim brakes and 24/24 for disc brakes is not "trendy" these days, however there are still people who like to have a well built wheels and as many spokes as there should be.

I think this build was the longest lasting build I ever made. It's been more than a month from the initial phone call from Rajiv till the build was completed. Many email exchanges, phone calls and text messages. All this to find a sweet point so the new hoops work in a best possible way for the rider.

Without going to the details, as usual I took into account the weight, power, purpose and budget. These are the min. necessary parameters to understand into which direction the build should go.

Wheels will have tubeless setup with 28mm tires pumped to about 80-90psi. Due to that I selected a new type of carbon rims, called midhook:

It's quite difficult to show it on the picture, but the rim beds are hookless and slightly bended into inside. That allows to run a typical road tires in tubeless mode with a bit higher pressure. Also, 22mm of the inner width is perfect for more wider tires, up to 45C used in gravel bikes.

Lack of hook on the beds drops a weight a bit so rims are overall lighter and stiffer.  

Within today's standards, all brands including leading ones as Zipp or Enve are moving to hookless direction. More clearance in the frames, wider tires and tubeless systems becoming more and more popular are pushing away traditional clinchers. I personally think that a full hookless solution is not ready yet for road tires so mid-hook solution like the above one is a very wise move.

Both rims are asymmetric which greatly helps to balance the spoke's tension between both sides. In addition, to have a bit better performing wheels the combination of 38mm/50mm rims were used.  

Rajiv's frame has 12x100mm front and 12x142mm rear axles. In order to ensure a great power transfer and high overall stiffness the Soul-Kozak hubs were used for this build.

Great geometry, highest quality of materials, stiff axles, large bearings and excellent weight. Innovative magnetic system called M-netic makes those wheels truly unique.

The splines on the cassette are thin like a hair but due to hardest available steel you won't face any bites from the cassette.

32 spokes together with brass nipples on front and rear were used. For this build I used super light Pillar Wing-20 spokes. They are a bit lighter than CX-Rays and stiffer at the same time. Applicable for disc brakes.  High number of spokes makes those wheels super strong. 

Road, gravel, sand, mud - they will do it all.

Rims have smooth, UD finish type with a nice accent next to the valve hole.

Rajiv wanted to have a blue decals. With the new "Black cat wheels" logo all looks very nice.

Looking at those wheels where wide & deep section rims were used, 64 spokes in total with brass nipples and large axles on hubs you might think that they weight around 1800g... absolutely not. The total weight is 1570g which makes them fast, strong and stable in all conditions.

Wheels are being shipped with tubeless tape and valves including valve extensions so all ready for tires installation and first rides.

Pricing and more details in my shop

@Rajiv - many thanks for choosing me for this build. Enjoy those beauties!

T.

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