Comments on: Project Wheel Build: The All Arounder: The Hubs

By: Ed B

Ed B — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 01:13:16 +0000

I built a set of 29″ wheels a couple of months ago, my first attempt.

I chose the American Classic hubs for three reasons:

1. I had mostly heard good things about them and chose to ignore the bad news as it seemed dated.
2. They are very light.
3. The Disc 225 rear hub is fairly quiet, after using Hopes I was after something quieter.

I chose Pacenti TL28 rims for the internal bead width, my old wheelset was Stan’s Flow and the internal widht on the Pacenti is almost idenrical. When I first used the Flows I was sure there was a real gain in performance from the wider bead width however I had come from a 26″ Crest. Some of the performance gain was from the tyre as well I think (Maxxis Ardent). Another reason I chose the Pacenti rims was I thought they would be less complicated for my first attempt at wheelbuilding.

I laced the wheels with DT Swiss Competition spokes.

I must say the mot difficult part of the whole project was choosing spoke length. I followed Roger Musson’s book and method which made the building very simple. The most difficult part of the building was knowing when to stop. My LBS checked spoke tension for me and made one adjustment on each wheel.

I have been using them now for nearly 3 months and am very happy with the outcome. The hubs have been great (no loud clicking…..I know some people like that which is great), the rims have been great, the lighter wheels are a huge transformation, I ride about two gears higher than with the flow/XT/straight gauge wheels most of the time which is really helpful on a 29er as it keeps the momentum going. Another plus they seem to roll very fast!

If anyone is interested in the Pacenti rims British company Superstar are doing some pretty competitive wheelbuilds with their hubs paired with Pacenti rims, if I liked noisy hubs I would be tempted.

Great info in this thread, thanks.

By: grannygear

grannygear — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:59:18 +0000

Re Renegade: I used that briefly on the front/back of a S Works HT on Co singletrack in dry to tacky conditions and found it better than expected. I also found it to be FAST!

In the wet? I would not think that would be so great. Maybe look at the revised FastTrak in an S Works casing for more knob depth and yet still a fast/light-ish tire.

grannygear

By: Guitar Ted

Guitar Ted — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:11:57 +0000

@Mike, I think fat front/smaller rear tire set ups are a traditional XC race set up for the Mid-west that I have been aware of for years. I guess if you got the high volume front/low volume rear to different you might see a slight change in handling, but you’d have to be pretty sensitive to notice that.

As for tire preferences, I would always err on the side of cornering prowess. Races can be won or lost on climbs, descents, and to a lesser degree, corners. Anytime you can carry more speed in a corner, you are saving energy in reacclerations.

I’ll see if I can point Grannygear over here for his take on things.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:10:32 +0000

Do you think the size difference between a Racing Ralph 2.25 front and a Renegade 1.95 rear would make things “funny”, either handling or traction-wise, though?
Also, the Trek Store of Madison has its riders put a guide for which Bontrager tires to use for the various courses in the WORS series. Several courses they put the XR0 (or 29-0) as front/rear if dry, and for one course they say the XR1 (original version) front/rear if dry. For those courses, do you think you could actually run the Renegade 1.95 front/rear (if dry)? I feel the tire would have more lateral traction than the original XR1 and probably more than the 29-0 due to its larger volume.
(Or maybe you could please ask Grannygear’s opinion since he was the one who used the Renegades.)

By: Guitar Ted

Guitar Ted — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:22:05 +0000

@Mike: Grannygear has run that tire as a rear a couple times at demos. I think that you could definitely run that tire on the rear end of your racing rig for WORS as long as it remains absolutely dry, but any hints of moisture probably would have me looking for that Ralph or Rocket Ron on the back end.

This is all course dependent, and as you know, one has to be on top of current conditions. That said, yes- The Renegade would be good here in the dry.