Friday 9 March 2018

Carbon hoops for Rick

You can hate carbon clinchers for poor braking in rainy days but you can't deny that they are simply sexy and give your bike a new, better look!


Few words about my recent build including plotter to produce nice and custom decals...

Rick found me based on the recommendations from other people for whom I built carbon clinchers in the past.
The request was simple - solid, safe and wallet friendly carbon hoops.


For such demands I have well tested and price attractive set which contains:
- OEM Carbon rims which are used by other big brands. In this project I used 44mm deep and 26mm wide, 20h front and 24h rear rims
- Bitex RAF12 / RAR 12 hubs
- CX-Ray spokes J-bend
- 14mm sapim nipples

Overall the total weight is below 1450g and safe for rider up to 90kg.  

Wheels are stiff and responsive. As always I take an extra care to make sure that the spokes are well aligned, unstressed so the tension stays unchanged after the first rides. 



Basalt braking surface is really good and safe on long descends. I'm using the same set personally and did over 10.000km in Swiss Alps with excellent results. The rims which I'm supplying are made form high resin epoxy which is safe up to 280 degrees Celsius which is more than sufficient. To be on the safe side for riders living in high mountains I recommend to use Swiss stop black prince pads which generate about 30% less heat than other pads.

Regarding Bitex hubs, well you can read about them in the internet. They are widely used also by other bigger brands. They are really light, solid with good bearings and will serve you for years. Yes, they do not look so sexy as more premium hubs but if you're looking for budget wheels they are no.1 on my list.



 Last but not least - decals. Every wheels need them. Small and discrete or large and fancy, it's all based on the customer's preference. For this reason I decided to move from standard decals to plotter and vinyl technique as this gives unlimited capacity and design possibilities. Now, I can finally adjust decals to the specific rim size and even make a custom decals with owner's name, country flag or what's so ever. 

In this build I made the decals with Blackcat wheels logo, two decals per each rim side.



 Rim was cleaned carefully and then Oracal 651 vinyl was applied. This is the most permanent vinyl on the market, often used for cars and outdoors decals.

In terms of price: the above set comes for 749CHF. In this set you get the wheels, rim tape, titanium quick releases, braking pads, two valve extenders and spare spokes. 

You can check more details in my on-line shop where you will see type of rims and hubs you can choose:
https://www.blackcatwheels.ch/p/shop.html?store-page=Carbon-wheelset-p101274581&category=27696188

Rick - enjoy your wheels and all the best!
T.
blog-wheelbuilding

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