As some of you may know Kanye is nothing if not tenacious and persistent. I’ve found myself preparing to re-build his rear wheel with a ridonculously light 135g (or is it 141g?) rear hub. The Jewish grandmother in me is more used to building wheels that are 3 times the weight and made to last a lifetime so it’s kinda messing with my head dealing with someone who counts grams in his sleep and flitters $'s away (and I don’t mean Escobar). But I can understand the allure, and must admit it is some pretty amazing stuff/materials/technology.
I had Medo with me, a nice sunny day and Gustav Mahler’s 5th symphony to set the right vibe. Thought I’d knock out a low spec track wheel to loosen up my fingers and get my eye in. Then I had Kanye’s front wheel which needed more than a tickle (dish, tension and radial true) but glad I did as it gave me a pre-cursor to what detail and patience the rear will need.
Whereas before I would have said nice wheels but not for me … the more I worked on it, the more I felt it would even hold up to my generous weight. I am looking forward to seeing how the rear wheel with the new hub builds up but that’ll have to be another day as Medo is saying it’s dinner time, so it’s time to pack up shop as the sun is soon to set.
I think spirito is expressing his latent weenyism by living vicariously through kanyes wheel.
Is there some sort of retro grouch pennance you do after this? Is medo’s look one of disapproval?
I must confess weenie stuff has me enthralled though. Idig its obsessive manner.
A version 1 SL hub by extralite…
I brought the wheels second hand and they had a few kms on em
The free hub developed a small crack through the lock ring threads…
10000m of climbing over a 10 day period finished the free hub off!
No more second hand wheels for me.
I could have got a new free hub under warranty but I didnt buy it new.
The new hub is better designed and has better bearings plus it’s lighter!
it’s H we’re talking about, if he first word isn’t vintage and the second word isn’t MTB he doesn’t want to know about it
@spirito have you ever compared your park tension meter with anything else?
I’m curious as i’ve tested three and all read high by ~20kgs (not bagging the tool it’s consistent and repeatable which is fine for checking relative tension/finding loose/tight spokes and in my case even the most technologically advance hyper-accurate tension meter wouldn’t change the fact that i’m shit at building wheels :P)
You better beleave it!
I’m acutally thinking about a set of evne 6.7 smart rims to race the summer Heffron crit series with…
They’ll bring the weight back up to 5.8kgs!!
