Carbon spokes - how to choose good wheels without going crazy?

 The beginning, project CarbonOne

Exactly three years ago, on January 13th, 2023, I published a blog post about the CarbonOne project.

In fact, I built my first wheels with carbon spokes for myself back at the beginning of 2022. At the time, these were the first carbon spokes available for non-system wheels. In general, this was not the beginning of carbon spokes on the market, as brands such as Mavic or Lightweight had been building such wheels for many years.

So what made the CarbonOne project spokes different? The key difference was the ability to use virtually any hub, because on the hub side these spokes had exactly the same dimensions as traditional steel spokes.

The project sparked huge controversy. Most people claimed that carbon spokes would never work. Today, three years later, practically all major companies have introduced such wheels into their offerings — including DT Swiss.

However, there is one crucial factor that determines whether such wheels will be better or worse than traditional ones, and that is what today’s post is about.

Advantages of carbon spokes - stiffness

One of the arguments in favor of carbon spokes is their lateral stiffness. Unfortunately, spokes alone will not magically give us stiffness - especially when a wheel is built with only 24 spokes. To achieve this, the right hub and rim profile must also be selected.

The most problematic wheel is always the rear wheel. The cassette and the disc brake mounting significantly limit the flange spacing of the hub, which means that the geometry of the rear hub is of crucial importance. A poorly designed hub results in a wheel with very low lateral stiffness, causing it to flex sideways, particularly during climbs.

In the CarbonOne project, I have chosen the CarbonTi hubs. One of the arguments was and still is - their good geometry:

36 mm from the center of the hub to the left flange is already a very respectable figure. Anything below this dimension significantly reduces lateral stiffness. We don’t notice this because we don’t have rim brakes and the rim has nothing to rub against; however, I can guarantee that if you were to attach zip ties to the frame, a hub with narrow flange spacing would cause rubbing during climbs.

This can be mitigated by using a higher number of spokes or a deeper rim profile, but in my case I wanted to use one type of hub for 30, 40, and 50 mm rim depths. A higher number of carbon spokes was not an option.

Carbon spokes in practice

Breaking new ground since 2022, many sets of CarbonOne wheels have made their way to various countries around the world, as far away as Japan.

Riders’ feedback has been, and still is genuinely positive. The wheels are comfortable and absorb road imperfections well thanks to the unique properties of carbon spokes. You can clearly feel both comfort and stiffness at the same time - a combination of two worlds that until now have been quite far apart.

On the downside, CarbonTi hubs have adjustable bearing preload and, unfortunately, require fairly frequent checks. Neglecting this leads to relatively quick bearing failure. When replacing bearings, I use higher tolerance ABEC-3 bearings, which significantly extends their service life to a full season or even longer. This applies to CarbonTi hubs in general, regardless of whether they are used in CarbonOne wheels or any others.

Bearing preload should be checked regularly, especially if you hear the brake rotor rubbing against the pads. In such cases, the play should be eliminated as soon as possible. When replacing bearings, I recommend Enduro ABEC-3, MAX version. Those last much longer than the stock SKF bearings installed by CarbonTi.

The second drawback of the CarbonOne project is the manufacturing technology of the carbon spokes. These spokes are still produced using a bonded construction, meaning that the aluminum end of the spoke, onto which the nipple is threaded, is glued to the rest of the spoke. Unfortunately, as time has shown, especially in the case of gravel wheels subjected to hard use, this joint can slip by about one millimeter. This causes the wheel to go out of true and requires the spoke to be replaced. So far, I have had only one such case in road wheels, but several in gravel wheels.

Does this disqualify the carbon spoke project? Of course not!

New adhesive-free spoke technology. The game changer

When the entire cycling world rushed toward carbon spokes, one company outplayed the whole market. That company is VONOA. Vonoa is a brand backed by a Chinese giant in composite technologies. From a technological standpoint, Vonoa spokes are a true masterpiece. The entire spoke is made of carbon, and the ends are joined without the use of any resin or adhesive.

The company has regularly exhibited at trade shows in Frankfurt. Two years ago, they presented these spokes. Interestingly, they patented this system on every continent around the globe. A worldwide patent like that costs many millions of dollars. Why is that? Simply because no one can copy this solution, and as a result, all major brands such as DT Swiss, Newmen, Scope, and many others use these spokes, because they are simply the best on the market.

Project CarbonOne v2

Having already more than four years of experience with carbon spokes, I naturally built wheels using these spokes. The new project was not easy at all. The new spokes are incredible and there is no question of the joint failing, but at the same time they have a much larger end diameter on the hub side, which makes it impossible to use standard hubs.

Many hub manufacturers have adapted a typical hub to the new spoke standard. However, in my opinion, many of them have done this completely wrong. Why? I’ll explain in a moment…

Typical 1:1 hubs for carbon spokes look like this:

As you can clearly see, the hub flanges have been widened to accommodate the thicker spokes. The distance of the left flange from the center is 33 mm, while the right one is just under 16 mm. Since the hub cannot be widened outward, space has to be taken from the center. Such narrowly spaced flanges result in a very - extremely low lateral stiffness of the rear wheel. On every climb, the rear wheel will flex significantly from side to side, especially with a lower rim depth.

This kind of approach completely disqualifies wheels built with carbon spokes, and in my opinion, you should avoid such wheels altogether.

So how should it be done properly? There is only one answer: triplet hubs.

The flanges on these hubs are very thin, which makes it possible to achieve excellent geometry. The left flange is 38 mm from the hub center, while the right one is 16 mm. In addition, the right flange has a significantly larger diameter and twice as many spokes (16) as the left one (8). Hence the name of the lacing pattern is “triplet,” meaning 16:8 (or 14:7).

I have been using the 16:8 / 14:7 lacing pattern for a long time now. For those who follow this blog, I also build very similar wheels with steel spokes - there is an entry about that here.

By using a triplet setup with carbon spokes, we obtain incredibly stiff and responsive wheels that transfer all the power from the cranks directly into acceleration, while at the same time remaining very comfortable. Riding on poor-quality asphalt or gravel is truly much more pleasant than on steel spokes.

Such hub geometry and this type of lacing give us a wheel with the best possible parameters. Campagnolo and Fulcrum have been using this lacing pattern for many years. Wheels from these manufacturers are renowned for their excellent stiffness, and that hardly needs any advertising.

The rims are the same as those used in the CarbonOne project and in all of my standard wheels. These are very well-proven and strong rims, available in inner widths of 21, 25, and 27 mm. This is already the eighth year that I have been sourcing them from this single manufacturer.

The graphic design is new. I spent a long time thinking about how to combine a matte finish with gloss… and here is the result:

The rim is painted in a matte finish, while the CarbonOne lettering, my logo, and the two side stripes are done in gloss. In real life, it looks amazing.

CarbonOne 2 and riding impressions

How do these wheels ride? Well, like this:

The photos above were taken by Janek from endlessgravelcrew on Instagram. Janek has already clocked 10,000 km in truly demanding conditions. The CarbonOne 2 wheels performed very well.

CarbonOne 2 will be officially available on the website soon: https://carbonone.pl/

Looking at the market, as I mentioned before, all leading brands have introduced carbon spokes, including DT Swiss: https://bikerumor.com/dt-swiss-builds-with-someone-elses-carbon-spokes-to-shed-125g-off-their-lightest-wheels/

Interestingly, this time DT did it really well, also using triplet hubs. The only remark is that there are just 18 spokes on the front wheel—quite controversial.

I used 21/21 spokes for the CarbonOne road wheels, with a 14:7 triplet lacing, two-cross/radial, and 24/24 spokes for the CarbonOne gravel wheels, 16:8 triplet, two-cross/radial on the front and two-cross/two-cross on the rear.

The road version has a 22 mm internal rim width with depths of 30/40/50 mm, while the gravel version comes in 25 or 27 mm internal width with a 40 mm depth.

If you want truly high-quality wheels with carbon spokes, built 100% by hand in Poland Wrocław, you’re very welcome to get in touch. Contact via email: [email protected] or through CarbonOne.pl. The wheels are built with great precision: 0.5 mm lateral runout, 1 mm vertical runout. A tensiometer calibrated specifically for carbon spokes ensures a real and correct spoke tension of 110 kg.

A final word

If you decide to go for wheels using carbon spokes in this new technology - that is, with a larger diameter on the hub side, pay close attention to the rear hub. I strongly advise avoiding 1:1 hubs, regardless of the manufacturer or marketing. Even the best marketing cannot cheat physics.

Good wheels with carbon spokes mean only one thing: triplet. Vonoa spokes provide a 100% guarantee of quality and safety, and those are the wheels you should be looking for.

Tomek.