Meet your Maker
The wheel has always fascinated me, and why wouldn’t it? It’s one of the oldest known inventions, with the earliest archeological example believed to be about 5500 years old. They get us from point A to point B every day, one way or another. Without the wheel, we’d be reduced to walking. It’s not natural. So when I got the chance to have a look at the Wheelworks team and their slick operation in action, I was more than a little excited. And the best part? I get to ride them!
I headed over to the salubrious Wellington beachside suburb of Lyall Bay to meet up with Wheelworks’ owner Tristan Thomas, a transplanted Canadian and former engineer who started the company in 2008 and has been churning out wheelsets in increasingly large numbers ever since. Recently Wheelworks have launched discipline-specific branding for their wheels, with the mountain bike side dubbed Flite and the road builds under the Maker moniker.
Tristan and his right hand man Gavin McCarthy ran me through the build process, and if you think it’s just a matter of chucking some spokes in and giving them a few turns, well you’d be very far from the mark: the process Tristan has developed over the years is one of precision, order and involves more than a few tools and tricks that most other builders wouldn’t even know of. I’ll do my best to run you through the steps as I watched my Maker/White Industries/DT x Velominati wheelset come to life.
I’ll be putting some time on these wheels over the next month or so and will bring a full ride report after that.
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@brett
Been admiring Tristan's wheels for a while now. Referred a friend recently who got ENVE's with T11hubs from Tristan. They are magnificent apparently.
Want me some makers also. Demo's for Aus ? (insert appropriate smiley face )
@frank
I'd swear, you all and your tubulars... what gives? You're essentially stuck with riding the same damn tires ALL THE TIME. What's the fun in that? It's like owning a pair of socks and having only one pair of shoes that work with the socks because they're glued together yes? Or something like that... whatev... Tubulars must be pretty friggen cool because folks that can be bothered with the hassle sure do love them that's for sure. Cheers!
@Brett - very timely article - I pick these up this weekend - White Industries T11 hubs with Hed Belgium's.
@wilburrox
You know that bit of human nature which says that if a person is going through some sort of hassle, tedium, or annoyance for no good or apparent reason then they think everyone else should suffer too?
Well it's the same with tubulars...
A. I don,t race B. I ride tubulars day in day out without issue C. Don,t be afraid of or knock something you have never tried ... D. Did clinchers for years never again, the plus,s of tubs far outweigh, hate to even say the word "clinchers"
@ChrisO
Tubs are great if, when you get a puncture, you raise your hand and a nice man comes running along and puts a new wheel in and gives you a little push to send you off on your way.
For the rest of us, fucking around in the dark, wind and rain, trying to hold your front lamp in your teeth as you wrestle with a sticky python that doesn't want to play for 1/2 hour as your core temperature drops dangerously to hypothermic levels and every passing lorry showers you in a freezing mixture of oil, grit and dead wildlife is not an attractive option.
@wilburrox
One is not "stuck" riding the same tubulars all the time; one should be so fortunate to have found and committed to the ideal tire.
Meanwhile, the clincher-riding heathen is convincing himself that the next pair of tires might be better than the last.
@Nate
HA! You just summed up my tyre philosophy, and shamed me, in one fell swoop. Chapeau.
@VeloJello
Ask me how I know, I have a plastic tub full of clinchers I have tried before I ran tubulars.
@Nate
That's a bit harsh, there are plenty of good clinchers out there. They're called open tubulars and want to be tubulars when they grow up.