Latest Custom Builds — Alex Rims

Josh emailed us looking for a new rear wheel for his trusty XC bike. He's been rocking 26 inch wheels up until now, and can't see the benefit of moving onto the bigger wheel sizes. He specifically races XC and ride Trails around Canberra, and sought our advice about a perfromance wheelset that was not too expensive, but offered a perfromance upgrade on his current wheels. After putting some quotes together, he realised the options we were suggesting enabled him to get a pair of wheels, and stay within his budget. Winner! We selected the Alexrims SPRK 2.1 rims as they...

Andy is a great repeat customer. He's had a few pairs of our hoops and got in contact one morning requiring a new rear wheel ASAP. We scoured the XLR8 labs and found a few choice parts in order to put together a reliable and race worth wheel, that he could pick up at the end of the day, but that would also not break the bank! The tried and true Alex SX44 29er rim was laced to the silver Deore XT Centrelock hub (oversized alloy axle) with Sapim Race spokes and brass nipples. We also converted the wheel to...

Ben is a repeat customer. We've built a couple of carbon rims for him and he has been so happy he asked us to rebuild some Bontrager wheels that came on his hardtail. They had been unreliable, and the local bike shop had been unable to keep them true for him. As with the majority of our builds, we custom cut Sapim spokes using our Morizumi spoke machine to an accuracy of +/- 0.1mm and laced the wheel in a reliable 3x pattern. The outcome is a set of much more evenly tensioned wheels, using far superior quality spokes, that...

Jeff is restoring a late 80s Shogun Alpine touring bike. He planning on using it for what it is intended, and needed our help to build the right wheels - tough, lightish, and smart. We favour the Alexrims DM21 and (it's slightly slimmer brother) the DM18 for builds like this. These rims are very tough, have a nice box section profile and build very stiff wheels. Both are reasonably wide (23mm and 19mm respectively) so work well with modern touring and training tyre widths (28c or more). They are both eyeleted for strength, and (for a wheelbuilder) are an absolute...

Bugs races XC, and needed some new MTB wheels to update an older ride. Having ridden carbon hoops before, he wanted to revert back to alloy, as he felt that (at least with skinnier XC tyres) alloy rims offered a more "comfortable" ride. He'd seen a pair of wheels we built some time ago, and decided a very similar package would suit him. Novatec D811SB QR15 front hub and the XLR8 MD rear MTB hub, in 12mm thru axle guise. The XLR8 hub is a solid choice. It's convertible back to QR and 10mm thru axle. The freehub can be converted...