Latest Custom Builds — Shimano

Aaron is part of the growing movement of hard hitting e-MTB bikers. He rides really hard (being an ex-motocrosser) and had demolished the original equipment rear wheel on his Merida. We upgraded his rear hub to an e-bike specific Shimano Deore, and built it onto a tough Alexrims MD40 rim - a 40mm internal width "Plus" sized rim that works nicely with the 2.8" tyres Aaron prefers. Plain gauge spokes, brass nipples and some sneaky nipple washers will ensure longevity for years to some.

  Andy has quite a few sets of wheels from us. He's been really happy with them, so contacted us when he realised that he had ripped the valve out of his 27.5+ e-bike wheel.   A natural choice for mid quality alloy rim replacements (for OEM products) are from AleRims. In this case we needed a strong rim with a 40mm internal width. The MD40 is the perfect choice. Certainly not expensive, and the quality is great. We laced the rim up to his Shimano Deore Centerlock hub with Sapim Leader plain gauge spokes and brass nipples, and used...

The latest in our "shittohit" series of projects, the XLR8 Wheels 2001 Trek 2300 is finally getting a complete rebuild. The bike came to us with a Shimano WH-6600 rear wheel. We are not a fan of the radial driveside lacing (makes no sense whatsoever) and the rusty old spokes (that were now well beyond their fatigue life). We found a nice old 20 hole Ritchey Zero hub in the used hubs drawer, and calculated the spoke bracing angles using our own developed spoke length, target tensions and bracing angle calculator. As the wheels were originally offered by Shimano with driveside radial lacing and...

Luke got in contact, and claimed that he'd been "breaking wheels for ten years now". His most recent purchase had been an Italian mid level factory wheelset, and he came to us after these had broken quite quickly. He's a bigger guy, and uses his wheels for both commuting and weekend rides. He needed 100% reliability, but was on a bit of a budget. We worked with him to come to a spec based on a Bitex lightweight front hub, and a Shimano 105 11s rear hub. We love Shimano hubs. The cup and cone system works really well and...

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...