Jason’s DT Swiss 240s and Carbon tubular cyclocross wheelbuild
So our good friend Jason needed some wheels built for his cyclocross bike for next season. He had a used rear hub and a set of rims and needed a front hub to match the rear as well as spokes to build them up. We got him the matching 240s 6 bolt 15mm thru axle hub and decided to go with Sapim Force spokes and alloy nipples for the build. Jason really wanted to get these as light as possible but also wanted to keep them fairly compliant. They also needed to be fairly strong too as these are for a crosser. The rims are made by http://www.light-bicycle.com/ and seem to be a legit brand of wheels at an incredible price. You can get a wide range of choices in regards to weave and finish. They also offer all of their road and cross rims in tubular, clincher and tubeless both rim brake and disc brake ready. You can even get your very own logos put on the rims as well. Now there’s been a lot of discussion over the past few years regarding the quality of some of the stuff coming out of China in regards to the often big name branded stuff. This outfit doesn’t fit into that category. At Interbike (North America’s annual bike industry trade show) I happen to be strolling around eating a sandwich and just killing time in a part of the building usually allocated to smaller manufacturers and I came across Light Bicycle. I very nice young Chinese woman talked with me about their products and had a generous amount of cut out samples and proceeded to show me the stringent QC procedures they undergo. I didn’t think much of it and after about ten minutes I kindly went on my way. Once back in SLC I seemed to get quite a few inquiries from a few clients about Light Bicycle and their rims. I started my research and found quite a few great reviews and checked out the pricing. You can get a rim delivered to your door for appx 250.00 shipped! We had a couple of requests so I pulled the trigger on a couple of rims for an all mountain 27.5 mtb. We finished up the build and our client really put the heat to them and they’ve held up great. So when Jason brought in the rims I was excited to see how the cross tubulars would build up. This our little write up on them. As we get more special projects like this I’ll try and do some more of these write ups. Anyway I hope you enjoy.
For the spokes we chose the Sapim Force. In the picture the Sapim is on the left and for comparison on the right is a DT Revolution. What makes the Sapim interesting is the thicker head that tapers a little further down the spoke. It uses a 2.2mm head that tapers into a 1.8 as the DT uses a 2.0 that tapers quickly to a 1.7. Both spokes taper back to a 2.0 at or just above the threads. This extra meat that the Sapim has will give the wheel a little more stiffness and lateral strength.