Cycling Weekly – August 22, 2019

40 | August 22, 2019 | Cycling Weekly

M

avic is often credited with,

or blamed for — depending

on your point of view —

ending the era of handbuilt

wheels and ushering cycling into the age of

the factory wheel. Its distinctive red Helium

wheelset, introduced into the pro peloton

in 1995, could be bought by anyone from

any Mavic dealer, complete and without

requiring any of the wheelbuilder’s dark

art to be performed on it in a small room

at the back of the shop.

Although Mavic has continued to

sell its Open Pro rim, probably still

the most popular choice for a handbuilt

wheelset, it’s hard to deny that buying a

factory wheelset is more convenient. It

takes potentially bewildering choices about

spokes and hubs out of the equation and

since factory wheels are built and trued by

machines — to varying degrees depending

on the manufacturer and model — their

performance and reliability ought to be

identical, making it possible to do accurate

online research before hitting the ‘add to

basket’ button. Not only that — wheelsets

mass produced in the Far East with a

minimum of human interaction will

inevitably be cheaper.

Which begs the question: Is there still

a reason to buy handbuilt wheels?

“Simply put, a wheel builder can do

things others are not willing to do,” says

Malcolm Borg of The Cycle Clinic. “For

example, if you’re a 120kg rider I would

do a 32-hole front/36-hole rear with a

stout rim like the H Plus Son Archetype

with Miche or Shimano hubs and Sapim

triple-butted spokes. A big wheel brand

will sell one of its standard wheels and

hope it will be alright.

TECH HANDBUILT WHEELS

Are handbuilt

wheels still

worth buying?

Simon Smythe weighs up the pros and cons of

getting your hoops made to order

Rims, spokes and hubs should

be selected to work together

“Added to that, many wheel

manufacturers deploy peculiar reasoning

in their wheel design. There are too many

wheels out there which, on paper, should be

good but somehow don’t feel right when

ridden. And how many get spoke failures?

It should be rare yet it’s common.”

One objection might rightly be that at

least with a factory wheelset you know what

you’re getting. How do you know whether a

handbuilt wheel is going to be any good?

“It’s not about whether they are handbuilt

or not — Campagnolo wheels are handbuilt,

for example — it’s more how well designed

and built they are. That means understanding

the specification and how that determines

how the wheel feels when being ridden

and how the build/spec influences wheel

lifespan. I have issues with many factory

wheels where either the spec is not quite

right or the build is not. 

“One wheelset, for example, that many

like but I do not is the Shimano Dura-Ace

C24 9000. Many like them because they

are light, they feel light and people like the

hubs, which are reliable. The wheel,

however, is laterally not very stiff at all,

and radial stiffness won’t be as high as a

32-spoke wheel either. This means when

standing up and accelerating the rim can

twist because the spoke count is not high

enough to prevent or limit this twist. If a

higher spoke count (28 Sapim CX Sprint

spokes) were used you would have a

light-feeling wheel

that feels like it

responds better

to hard efforts.

It would also be

more reliable.

It would be slightly

heavier but I

dislike the idea of

building something

that’s compromised

just because

it sells.

“Then there is

the build itself and

Spoke profile and number are both

important variables to consider