Latest Custom Builds — Sapim

Peter contacted us after buying his new Scott disc road bike. He was unhappy with the weight of the wheels. Following some consultation, where we discussed his riding style, surfaces, and goals, he decided on the Hplusson THE HYDRA tubeless disc road as the perfect rim for his build. They are light, nicely finished, tubeless ready, and certainly great value.  Bitex MTR and MTR hubs were selected for their easy parts availability, and solid economy performance. They are a really light MTB hub, so certainly up to the task of road disc usage. Of course, dependable Sapim Race spokes and...

Gavin has an old school custom 29er. Back from the days when the geometry was still being tried and tested, but yet to be fully refined. It's fair to say that process did take some years to come to the stable, yet still quite nimble 29er geometry that exists today. His old ride has quite short top tube, and he decided to convert it to a monstercross (big tyre gravel) bike, as the geometry would be perfect for that, and he has a lot of old parts lying about. The only snag was that he didn't have a rear wheel...

Bob needed a new set of wheels for Ultra Endurance riding. They needed to be light, strong and not too expensive. These days, the hubs are the most expensive part of most builds, so the XLR8 MD hubs fit the bill nicely. They are made in Taiwan by one of the world's largest hub manufacturers, feature ABEC 5 grade Enduro bearings, an alloy freehub, and readily available parts (not that they are often required). For rims, the Nextie classic series offer great value. The 45mm version is very aero, yet still rather light. Tubeless ready, toroidal aero shape, quality high Tg...

Dan rides a very unusual Enduro rig. The Kiwi made Zerode Taniwha uses the Pinion P1:12 frame mounted gearbox, and thus only a single front chainring, and one rear cog. This gearbox provides 12 gears, evenly spaced apart to give a total gearing range of 600 percent. Setup appropriately, this can offer gearing as high as a SRAM 11s 32x10t set-up, but with a super low ratio that’s even lower than a 46t cog! This special bike requires special wheels. Dan's old 26" wheels had been serving him well, but the bike was designed to accomodate 27.5" and he was keen to try...

John needed some aero wheels in order to keep up with the youngsters he's been riding with. He felt his Dura Ace C24s were just not aero enough. We discussed the many options, and his thinking was that these new wheels might end up as race wheels if they provided enough speed (spoiler: they do!) so he wanted them stiff with a capital "S". The Nextie Classic carbon road rims are the chassis on which to build his hopes; the 45mm and 58mm rims (NXT45RC and 58RC) made sense - great warranty and finish, at a very reasonable price. Super aero...