Well it rained today so it meant one good thing, I could recover from yesterdays hangover 
It also meant one other very good thing….
I bought this front hub at the start of this year but with one thing and another I have never got round to building it
First stumbling block was trying to find anybody who had any idea how to build one, searched everywhere and had a brief email exchange with the son of the guy that designed and engineered them, it never went any further than 2 emails and I never did see the spoke lengths I was hoping for, Oh well, I’ve built plenty of wheels, how hard can it be…
Stumbling block number two, straight pull spokes, I have a good friend who has close relationships with DT Swiss, in fact it turned out he was going to the factory in Switzerland, he must be able to find me some straight pull spokes, guess what, no chance, they have had any for years, so on with the search, not easy when you don’t even know what length you need!
Trawl ebay and as if by magic there’s some guy selling off loads of odd DT swiss spokes and guess what, he’s got some straight pull ones, 264mm, I decide it must be fate and go with the buy it now option, I can always roll a few more threads if need be.
Finally got chance to build it today and to be honest it was a very straight forward build
I had an old Mavic X517 rim kicking round and thought I might as well use that, I will be looking for a yellow X517 to rebuild it on but it gives anybody else a starting point ERD of a X517 is 540.5mm, I used 264mm straight pull spokes and 264mm standard spokes for the outer flange.
Start by building the straight pull spokes first, I tightened these up before fitting the outer flange spokes, this was mainly to check the length was right, I backed them off later to true the whole thing up
Once the central spokes are all in and loosely tightened you finish off with the outer flange spokes, I initially thought these were going to be a radial spoke but in fact they build the same as a standard wheel and pulling spokes
Now it finished it looks great, very different and a very strong build, wouldn’t like to get it full of mud but it looks very trick
If you have a hub and need help building it I have enough straight pull spoke left for one more build but that’s it
Now to find a matching rear hub
It also meant one other very good thing….
I bought this front hub at the start of this year but with one thing and another I have never got round to building it
First stumbling block was trying to find anybody who had any idea how to build one, searched everywhere and had a brief email exchange with the son of the guy that designed and engineered them, it never went any further than 2 emails and I never did see the spoke lengths I was hoping for, Oh well, I’ve built plenty of wheels, how hard can it be…
Stumbling block number two, straight pull spokes, I have a good friend who has close relationships with DT Swiss, in fact it turned out he was going to the factory in Switzerland, he must be able to find me some straight pull spokes, guess what, no chance, they have had any for years, so on with the search, not easy when you don’t even know what length you need!
Trawl ebay and as if by magic there’s some guy selling off loads of odd DT swiss spokes and guess what, he’s got some straight pull ones, 264mm, I decide it must be fate and go with the buy it now option, I can always roll a few more threads if need be.
Finally got chance to build it today and to be honest it was a very straight forward build
I had an old Mavic X517 rim kicking round and thought I might as well use that, I will be looking for a yellow X517 to rebuild it on but it gives anybody else a starting point ERD of a X517 is 540.5mm, I used 264mm straight pull spokes and 264mm standard spokes for the outer flange.
Start by building the straight pull spokes first, I tightened these up before fitting the outer flange spokes, this was mainly to check the length was right, I backed them off later to true the whole thing up
Once the central spokes are all in and loosely tightened you finish off with the outer flange spokes, I initially thought these were going to be a radial spoke but in fact they build the same as a standard wheel and pulling spokes
Now it finished it looks great, very different and a very strong build, wouldn’t like to get it full of mud but it looks very trick
If you have a hub and need help building it I have enough straight pull spoke left for one more build but that’s it
Now to find a matching rear hub
