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Wheelset for around 40.000yen? (Stories of the Noob)

Here is a good tire pressure recommendation CHART.

Got a bit curious and poked around vittoria's site. According to this, it seems the pressure I'm using is pretty ok! Well, at least it felt right today! :)

But indeed, according to that same chart, the old tires were kind of over inflated :warau:.
 
Yep - most people over inflate their tires. Until they get a flat on on the road and have to pump them with a mini-pump, then surprisingly, they are probably running close to the correct pressure.

Got a bit curious and poked around vittoria's site. According to this, it seems the pressure I'm using is pretty ok! Well, at least it felt right today! :)

But indeed, according to that same chart, the old tires were kind of over inflated :warau:.
 
Got a bit curious and poked around vittoria's site. According to this, it seems the pressure I'm using is pretty ok! Well, at least it felt right today! :)

But indeed, according to that same chart, the old tires were kind of over inflated :warau:.

700x23C is in both the red and in the blue line, what's the difference?
 
Different (old) NooB, pretty similar question. I have a quarter-century-old bike whose steel frame was in its day marketed as "sportif"; I guess it might now be considered (ancient) "randonneur". It takes 700C and the rear axle what's-it is a mere 125mm though the current rear hub is 130mm. I don't race and I never will. Maybe the bike will never go over 40 km/h; wind resistance will surely be of minimal importance. But I (circa 75kg) would like to go moderately far on this and I want a good chance of surviving the occasional unnoticed pothole unscathed.

Since hearing from EricInIkebukuro that my front wheel was a disaster waiting to happen -- and also some negative (though very politely expressed!) comments on the quality of the ancient rim -- I'd been worrying about the rear wheel. So today I took my antique to the (very) LBS for a quick look.

Seems that the rear wheel had already been adjusted pretty well. But the man (again politely) expressed the same doubts about the rims, and the (ageing) spokes as well.

And so we got to talking about new wheels. Unfortunately I hadn't previously read this or any other thread, but anyway he has a dim opinion of Shimano wheels (at least in part because they keep changing their designs, bringing compatibility problems) and a high opinion of Fulcrum. In particular, Fulcrum 7. Fulcrum 5 doesn't cost much more and (if I got this right) the rims are a bit lighter, but he doesn't think the weight/performance difference is worth the small price difference. Fulcrum 3 is quite a leap in price, for better hubs; and he thinks these are worth the extra money, at least for some people (though probably not me).

I'm getting old and lazy and I'd like to ask the man to set it all up for me, and I'll not think about the discounts I might have got from Wiggle or similar. Any thoughts on Fulcrum 7 or alternatives (which might cost a bit more)?

As for aesthetics, I don't much mind. This is a bike for riding, not ogling. (As if anybody would!) That said, I greatly dislike prominent lettering on wheels. Apparently the "Fulcrum" advertising is on stickers that can be removed, but the man sounded a bit uncertain about this. Are there no good wheels that don't shout what they are? The clincher versions of these (horribly expensive) Miyata bikes look tasteful; apparently the rims are "Mavic Open Pro" -- but when I look for "Mavic Open Pro" elsewhere they're conspicuously branded. I'm confused.
 
Probably the best all purpose wheels are the Shimano Ultegra 6700. At little less then 4man, they are great value and you can ride either tubeless or tubed clinchers. For something a little lighter and smoother hubs, we actually have a Niobium alloy wheelset that features a 2:1 lacing (like the new Shimano series), lighter than Fulcrum Zeros, and in the 4man price range. I also have a 23mm wide version custom built up on many choice of hub (like Ultegra's) that hit under the 4man range. Or, at only 12,000 yen or so are the Shimano WHR-501 wheels. A bit on the heavy and soft side - but super reliable and the best value for entry road / training /indoor wheel.

I'd personally lean towards the Ultgera 6700's or our 23mm '2:1' Wheelset or a custom build on the Ultegra Hubs and either 23mm rims or Ambrosio Excelites.

The nice thing about Shimano based wheels is that parts and service are very easy to accomplish. They use loose ball bearings , hard alloys and steel carriers. In short, they last a very long time and are easy to work on. Spokes / lengths are common and easy to obtain. Most are available in 28, 24, 20h builds. For the heavier / duty rider I usually spec just 28h front and rear. Very bombproof.
 
It sounds like your shop guy is for some reason just anti-Shimano. For the record, Shimano is making some excellent wheels, and the Ultegra 6700's are definitely one of the best values! Nothing wrong with Fulcrum's, but Shimano has them beat at nearly every price point across the board, IMHO. Furthermore being in Japan, Shimano parts and support are much more widely available.

Beyond that, Tim is offering an excellent product at a great price point. His wheels are definitely worthy of your consideration!
 
Yes, I'd noticed a lot of praise above for the Shimano Ultegra 6700. The man I spoke to doesn't seem to have anything against Shimano in general, but (if I understood correctly) seems to think that Shimano is too quick to change wheel designs, in an attempt to get people to change the whole wheel rather than parts thereof. Perhaps he exaggerates, or perhaps he's embittered by a single change in the past.

Terribly sorry -- I've already taken a bit of his time, and I have a possibly related sprocket irritation, and he is very local (maybe 200m away), so this time I'll be buying from him.

Whatever I get, if there's a choice of number of spokes, I'll go for the maximum number (unless, for some bizarre reason, this greatly inflates the price). A racer might find some aerodynamic or weight advantage in fewer spokes; but for me, overkill here doesn't seem to have a downside.

Stupid question du jour: Can all of today's hubs easily be nutted rather than QR? I'm far more concerned about the risk of some psycho opening a QR than I am about saving a few seconds while removing or readding a wheel. [Cough: Or a few minutes, as observed in Aoyama. Sorry!] I figure that if I'm bagging the bike the spanner will anyway come in handy for the pedals.
 
Yes, I'd noticed a lot of praise above for the Shimano Ultegra 6700. The man I spoke to doesn't seem to have anything against Shimano in general, but (if I understood correctly) seems to think that Shimano is too quick to change wheel designs, in an attempt to get people to change the whole wheel rather than parts thereof. Perhaps he exaggerates, or perhaps he's embittered by a single change in the past.


perhaps it's the recent 11 speed shimanos which if i recall from another discussion require a diff hub from the 10s?
 
Optmal Tire Pressure

There is a very interesting article in Bike Quarterly about the optimum tire pressure, ie. the balance between rolling resistance and comfort. I was surprised when I made the calculation as I ended up with less pressure in the front wheel and more in the rear wheel as opposed to what I did so far based on my gut feeling.

http://www.bikequarterly.com/images/BQTireDrop.pdf
 
perhaps it's the recent 11 speed shimanos which if i recall from another discussion require a diff hub from the 10s?

I was asked about sprockets. Right now I have a set of six. They're enough for me. Seven or even eight would be pleasant, if there's no downside to this. I don't have any sentimental attachment to my derailers and if there's a good reason to change them that's OK with me. But what I'd really resent is if I were told that everything's now made for such-and-such a kind of sprocket tooth, which requires such-and-such a chain, which in turn requires new chainwheels. So I want all of this sorted out beforehand with friendly LBS guy.

There is a very interesting article in Bike Quarterly about the optimum tire pressure, ie. the balance between rolling resistance and comfort. [. . .]

http://www.bikequarterly.com/images/BQTireDrop.pdf

Yes, ha ha, I'd seen that a couple of days ago. And pages like it, too. I'd been thinking that the (tubular) tyres on my (other) bike no longer seemed as rockily hard as they had when new, so I really ought to check how hard I should pump them with my new, gauge-equipped pump. Answer: something like 6.4 and 7.6 bar, if I understand correctly. (The former being less than the recommended minimum written on the tyre itself.) I pumped till 7 bar, whereupon the resistance from the pump suddenly leaped up and I didn't dare pump any more. (I suspected that the gauge was wonky and I'd inadvertently pumped up to 11 Bar or whatever. Later cross checking with LBS's pump showed that no, the gauge was just fine.)

I (circa 75 kg) pumped up the tyres on my other bike (700×25C) too. I realized that my vague idea of adequacy had been under 4 bar. (Duh!)

And this morning I pumped up the tyres on the missus' bike. This time I didn't read any graph and instead noted that the tyres themselves stipulated a 7.4 bar minimum. This made little sense to me. (According to my understanding of the graph and the various weights, the pressures should be somewhere around 3.3 bar and 3.8 bar.) Anyway, having pumped up her tyres to 6 bar I went to the loo for the final time before pedalling off, and there heard an explosion. Part of her rear tyre had escaped the rim, and there was a 3 cm long rip along one of the seams of the inner (Panaracer, fitted by Y's perhaps three months and 200km previously).

Well, I'm glad that this didn't happen when Mrs microcord was riding on the thing. And if inner tubes include some duds and I had bad luck -- just as one wine bottle in fifty or a hundred has a defective cork -- then OK, but otherwise I don't know what might have gone wrong. And I still don't know whether I should pump her tyres to what the graphs suggest, or to the minimum suggested by the tyre company, which is twice as much.

(An additional minor complication: The only replacement inner I possessed for these 27×1⅛ [!] tyres had a Woods valve. My pump can inflate this, via an adapter, but it can't measure the pressure. So the best I can do is pump the front tyre to the desired pressure and use finger and thumb to guesstimate that the pressure of the rear tyre is about the same.)

Well, I got to change inner tubes for the first time in over a decade. (The previous time was on a street corner in Aoyama.) I still remembered how to do it. And however incompetently I may have done it, the result didn't explode during the subsequent 55 km ride to Fuchuu (where I bought inners with Presta valves) and back.
 
A tube that new should not go BOOM if the pressure was not excessive, I would suggest a few possible scenarios;
The tube had been either damaged during the install, and then blew out because of the added pressure on the damaged area.
The tube had a defect, and blew out due to damage.
The tube was pinched somewhere between the rim and the tyre bead, and when the pressure was low, it held, but once the pressure was increased it let go.
There is something sharp embedded in the tyre, when the pressure was low, the sharp thingy did not poke the tube, but when you increased the pressure, it caused the sharp thingy to pop the tube.

When you changed the tube, did you do a good check of the tyre for any sharp thingys sticking into the tube area?

Best of luck :D
 
Stu, I follow the logic.

I did do a quick check for problems within the tyre, but in retrospect I didn't check carefully. (My feeble excuses: I was eager to get going, and wilting under my wife's [patient, well-intentioned, and appreciative] gaze. I mean, I felt like an idiot for having somehow contributed to the explosion of the tyre, and every additional minute accentuated the feeling of idiocy.)

For one wheel to have a Woods valve is an irritation; I've half a mind to change the inners again just so that we're again an all-Presta household. If I did this of course I'd use the opportunity to have a good feel inside the tyre. I really hope that this is fine because I can picture the request for a replacement 27×1⅛ tyre causing tooth-sucking and head-shaking.

(What with its obsolete tyre size and mixte frame [to which various things don't fit], this bike is a bit of a pain, frankly.)
 
Riders typically overinflate their tires thinking somehow that more is better. Modern 'open tubular' tires have more air volume and high inflation tends to make the contact patch longer and skinnier vs shorter and wider. This actually increases resistance of the tire travelling over bumps and also causes increase in ride roughness which can also affect traction. There is an optimum balance between overall compliance and contact patch position. And for most riders it's around 7bar actually. I did a bunch of tire / wheel testing on Tomin No Mori, and for example, if I raised my pressures above 7.5 bar I started getting quite nasty and serious harmonic induced vibration leading to fork shimmy. Not fun! Lowering the pressue a little at time and I found that roughly 7 bar front and rear yielded the best balance between control, vibration and speed. Tire by tire is different. I ride higher pressure in the Schwalbe than Vittorias, and lower pressure in the Veloflex (tubulars). They're all different.
 
Tim, you speak from experience. I don't want to argue against you. Still, I'm puzzled by a couple of things. First, you say that not only for you but for most riders the optimum pressure is around 7 bar. Even if you have a particular kind of tyre in mind -- And why not? You're not writing an encyclopedia article! -- then the other stuff I've read would suggest that the optimum pressure for this would depend on the weight of rider plus bike plus baggage; and we all know that this can vary quite a bit. Secondly, why the intercourse do tyre manufacturers specify such high minimum pressures on the tyres themselves? (Obeisance to morons in the Accounts Department who know even less about cycling than I do, maybe? Hey, I'm willing to believe anything!) The small print for Panaracer inners tells you to pump to the pressure requested by the tyre manufacturer; the Panaracer tyre says minimum 7.4 bar (if I remember right) -- this for a tyre that's like an ever so slightly larger-diameter 700x28C, ridden by somebody who doesn't want me broadcasting her weight, but let's say she's a Japanese woman of average height who's not at all fat.

Aha . . . maybe I can guess. Perhaps it depends in part on wheel rigidity. Because often it does seem that the successful working of anything depends on the performance of everything else; perhaps Frankenbikes should not be embarked upon by the iggernant (myself).
 
There is a very interesting article in Bike Quarterly about the optimum tire pressure, ie. the balance between rolling resistance and comfort.

This is also worth a look.
http://www.slowtwitch.com/Tech/What_s_in_a_tube__1034.html

I had a sidewall puncture once when I was out, so stopped at the nearest of the two LBS`s here for a replacement on the way back. I changed the inner tube and tyre and just asked the mechanic if I could borrow the floor pump as easier than using my pump on the bike. Instead, he offered to pump it up for me, and kept going even after I indicated I thought it was hard enough. So on the way home, I was just bouncing all over the road, so had to stop and let some air out... Maybe he just thought I was porkier than I am???
 
The Shimano WH R501s are 9000yen from amazon.jp (as long as you go with silver - black is a little more expensive). I have the previous incarnation, the R500, and I've found it to be an unproblematic wheel.
I weigh 73kg, my bike comes in at about 12kg when laden with water and tools, and there are some badly kept roads near where I live.

As for fitting a 130mm wheel into a 125mm rear end, I've done it on both my single speed conversion and my current steel frame without problems (both were nominally 126mm). I opted to flex the metal apart rather than 'cold set'.
 
130 wheel works fine in steel bike. The chainline will be slightly off - but if you are using older 8 or 9 speed there is no issue. If you plan use the 10 speed spaced freehub, then I suggest getting the frame properly 'cold set' as you need to not just space the drops apart, but actually shift the whole triangle to set the chainline correctly. And after that - drops need to be adjusted perfectly parallel otherwise when you clamp in the QR you will cause rear hub shaft to bend slightly resulting in rapid bearing wear and increased static loading.

Alot happens back there, from an engineering dynamics POV, the more accurate you make the system , the better it will roll and last longer.

The Shimano WH R501s are 9000yen from amazon.jp (as long as you go with silver - black is a little more expensive). I have the previous incarnation, the R500, and I've found it to be an unproblematic wheel.
I weigh 73kg, my bike comes in at about 12kg when laden with water and tools, and there are some badly kept roads near where I live.

As for fitting a 130mm wheel into a 125mm rear end, I've done it on both my single speed conversion and my current steel frame without problems (both were nominally 126mm). I opted to flex the metal apart rather than 'cold set'.
 
130 wheel works fine in steel bike. The chainline will be slightly off - but if you are using older 8 or 9 speed there is no issue.

The "offness" (by just 2mm, no?) of the chainline would surely be minuscule compared with the other indignities to which it's subjected. My dear wife has a predilection for "large chainwheel, largest sprocket" and "small chainwheel, smallest sprocket", both of these combinations being distinctly audible (to me, anyway). Eventually, I may manage to persuade her that alternatives are more attractive, and even inculcate the notion of "trimming".
 
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