Latest Custom Builds

John has been riding these Mercury carbon wheels for a while. They have seen some use, and need a little love, so he decided to have XLR8 fix a few problems that had emerged. The front hub bearings were loose in the hubshell, and would not stay put. Plus, the rear wheel had started to break spokes. The general rule here is that if a wheel breaks a couple of spokes, it's worth investing in a full rebuild. John's on a budget, and saving up for an XLR8 custom build. To help him out, we used an inexpensive but perfectly functional Shimano...

If you are running a Specialized MTB dually from a few years ago, you may have a proprietary "142plus" hub. More details in a recent post, but essentially, if you have one of these, it makes sense to keep using it. The idea was a good one (a wider flanged hub), but came along just as the Boost standard emerged, and was thus eclipsed. Only certain Specialized frames can use these hubs, and these hubs cannot be used in normal 142mm spaced frames. Another retailer approached us to help out one of his customers. The customer hadpurchased a Light Bicycle...

Hernando rides a Trek All Mountain 29er. It's a fine bike, and he's decided that he'll keep it for a good few years yet. Being a 29er, he felt that the standard Bontrager Rhythm Comp alloy wheelset was a little too flexy for his liking. They are also a little narrow at 21mm wide internal. He felt this to be the only issue with the bike. So, after a couple of years abusing the alloy wheelset, he came to us looking for advice on a wide carbon wheelset to breathe a bit of new life (and lateral stiffness ) into...

Brock was having some woes with his Easton EA70 rear wheel. He'd pulled a spoke through the rim. We find the Kinlin XC279 is an excellent replacement rim for this kind of wheel - super robust, not heavy and wide at 23mm external. Being a few years old, and having some some miles on them, the spokes and nipples were seized. We rebuilt the fine Easton EA70 hub onto the Kinlin using Sapim Race double butted spokes on the non drive side, and Sapim Leader plain gauge spokes on the driveside. The heavier gauge spoke acts to somewhat equalise lateral...

We performed a Specialized Roval DTSwiss 240s 142+ hub rebuild for Ben - disassembly, internal and external clean, new bearings, springs, grease(s), and she's back in action and ready for another 5 years of abuse! Then we do what we seem to be doing to a lot of Roval wheels lately - replaced the rim. We replaced the cracked Roval with a Nextie Asymmetrical 25mm internal width rim, to match the width of his surviving front. We used DT Swiss Competition double butted black spokes and black brass nipples on this rebuild, and of course setup the tubeless tape for...