Wile is an old customer of ours. He recently visited us with a set of wheels we built him some time ago – so we took to opportunity to take some shots, and report to you on how they are going after 10,000km (including more than 1,000km of dirt road riding). At 82kgs, Wile is strong enough that reliability is appreciated, but so is stiffness. Complicating the issue is that Wile is a power climber – big gears, out of the saddle, low cadence. That his bag! So a light weight wheel is desirable.
This was the first set of Tubeless compatible Velocity A23s we built, and they are a little special.
The build was onto a set of Campagnolo Chorus 32h hubs (that had already seen service on two sets of wheels). As these were a high spoke count wheel, super light Sapim Laser spokes were used on the front wheel, and rear non-drive side. The rear drive side used slightly thicker Sapim Race double butted spokes, to preserve out of the saddle stiffness. Alloy nipples were used on the front wheel only.
After a couple of hard years, we can report that (apart from dripping some lube into those alloy nipples – a purely precautionary measure) we didn’t have to touch them – good even tension, and true within specs. Gotta be happy with that! We did however, put some new decals on, and weighed them – 1603g for the pair (including tubeless rim tape)! A simply fantastic weight for a completely bombproof 32 hole wheelset. Hurrah!
