I wanted to share with you all the results of my first wheelbuild. The headline specs/stats are:

• weight: 1319g
  
• depth: 50/55mm (front/rear)
  
• width: 21/28 (internal/external)
  
• cost: $718

I've been meaning to make this thread for a while. I've been busy finishing my PhD and finally had the time to cobble it together. Theres some more build info I want to add in a later post but I'll put this up for now.

I had recently bought myself a truing stand and tensionmeter to rebuild a wheel with a rim that I broke racing CX. Now having the tools to build wheels, I got curious about the phenomenally low prices on wheelbuilding components, as well as the freedom to pursue interesting build configurations.

I'll be transparent here: this is a vanity build driven by questionable weight and aero-weenie-ing. Experienced wheelbuilders will probably cringe at my choices, and that's fine with me. The irony of scraping for grams on this build while I could stand to lose 20lbs of body fat is not lost on me. At the end of the day I had a lot of fun building these up, I think they look super cool, it's exciting to me that I've built up such a lightweight wheelset, and I've had a pretty good experience riding them so far. Given this premise of vanity over practicality, I hope you can appreciate my wheelbuild for what it is.

Rims:
I did a bit of searching for the manufacturer of the lightest rims and landed on Deerobust. It helps that they are the first result when you search "lightest carbon rim" into aliex. This is no exaggeration, the 21mm-internal-width, 50 and 55mm-deep rims I chose ("featherweight"-spec + paintless finish) were quoted at 390g and 420g respectively; the only manufacturer that seems to come close is Lightcarbon.

I chose 50/55 simply because it's a depth that seemed to strike a good balance between weight and aero. I also won't lie and say that the decision was influenced by the fact that the Enve SES 4.5 rims used by Pogi and UAE are 50/55mm deep, even though if we're being realistic those are completely different wheels. I chose 21mm internal width because it seems that this is still the ideal rim width for aero given a 28mm tire. I understand the rule of 105% says otherwise. On the other hand, Peak-torque's testing results (particularly the comparison of the Polaris Ascent 42 against the ICAN Aero 35 across 28mm and 32mm tires) suggests that a 28mm tire is faster on a 21mm internal width rim compared a wider one.

Another feature I chose for my rims is internally-drilled spoke holes. For one, there is the (dubious) aero benefit of having hidden nipples. But more importantly--as ENVE's marketing material points out--smaller spoke holes means stronger spoke holes, and therefore a stronger, safer rim.

I paid $507 (inc. shipping) to order my rims from Deerobust, with bespoke paintless finish, hole-drilling, and logo.  The rims weighed 410 and 415g respectively. I was a tad disappointed that my front rim came 5g over the spec weight +/- 15g margin of error. On the other hand, my rear rim came 5g under spec weight, the average weight between the two was under the +/- 15g per rim margin of error, so I called it good and decided to not complain.

Hubs
As for hubs, I chose GOLDIX 21-spoke hubs with 2:1 lacing. These have no official model number but appear to be a DT-swiss style ratchet hub with straight-pull lacing. I chose these because a) Goldix seems to have a fairly decent reputation on here, and b) these hubs are very lightweight. The standout unique design feature of these hubs is that there are 21 spokes, 14 spokes laced in a 3x pattern on the stressed side (drive side on rear, brake side on front), and 7 radially-laced spokes on the non-drive side. I went for this unusual design because fewer spokes theoretically means lighter and more aero, while the 2:1 3x lacing, especially when paired to such deep rims, potentially could make up for the loss in stiffness. Remember, this is a vanity build.

When my hubs arrived, they seemed to be of decent quality. The bearings were a tad notchy--something that has gone away since I started riding them. The bearings are "NBK" brand, and have metal ball cages, which are a feature of decent-quality bearings. These aren't showstoppers, but they aren't complete garbage either.

One criticism I have about these hubs is that that to achieve radial lacing on the non-stressed side, the hub axle has a hole drilled out to allow a spoke to be passed through into the back of the spoke hole. This means that the wheel bearing on the radially laced side is offset inboards an entire centimeter. This is bad for hub stiffness and longevity. The further inboards the bearing sits, the longer the unsupported section of the axle is (making less stiff), and the bearing has to bear more axial/side loading (which harms longevity). In the future I might swap these hubs out for a different design.

Spokes and nipples
For this build I chose Pillar Wing 20 with Pillar hex-10 internal nipples. I have a whole extra story to tell about these nipples that I will get to another time. I chose these spokes over the alternative (Sapim CX Ray/DT aerolite) because they are supposedly stiffer, lighter, just as aero, and definitely are cheaper. The idea that a wider spoke section is just as aero as a narrower one baffles me, but I'll trust in Campagnolo and Boyd, who have supposedly tested this difference and chose the Pillar wings. I also spoke-prepped my threads using Rock n Roll Nipple cream.

Finishing touches
As is common, I have wrapped my wheels in 28mm Continental GP5000 clincher tires, with RideNow 19gr tubes inside, likely the lightest and lowest-rolling-resistance combo in the Continental range, barring the GP5000TT. I'm also running ONIRII's super-light 160mm floating disc rotors, and an S-ROAD one-piece 11-32 cassette

Overall impressions
So far I've logged about 100 miles on these new wheels on my road bike. They certainly sound cool and feel fast. And they do not feel like they're particularly lacking in stiffness. One major complaint I am experiencing is that my freehub ratchet has been slipping occasionally. I serviced it and found that I had reinstalled the o-ring incorrectly and that some dirt/grime had made its way into the ratchet. After a bit of cleaning and regreaseing it was nearly perfect once again, perhaps I need to clean it more and regrease with the special DT swiss ratchet grease.

Are these truly "fast" wheels? Who knows. They haven't stopped me from setting a bunch of Strava PRs here and there. But as far as bling factor, these are 10/10, super cool and super fun wheels to have.

Thanks for reading my wheelbuild story. Would love to hear your thoughts and questions. Hopefully soon, I can make a quick post about how I dealt with some challenges I experienced using the Hex-10 nipples.

Hello, I fixed the headset play simply adding a 1mm headset spacer (cutting it to a C shape) above the C ring, I think a 0.5mm would be enough but i don't have anyone right now. C-ring I'm using is this one a had around. Expander I'm using is Deda Expander 70,very stiff and light, those AliExpress expanders with O-rings or springs doesn't convince me. also I'm not using the Hygge handlebar, Og-evkin one instead.
There's no play at all, I filled the tiny gap (smaller than the one at the bottom of the head tube) with grease to avoid dust and water ingress. Expander is tighten to the Deda's recommended 5Nm and stem bolts also 5Nm.

I mean, Giant went from a kind of no name OEM to a top road bike brand by doing 2 things. 1 getting bikes in the Tour, and 2 getting into brick and mortar stores for better sales and service support. That's pretty much all these brands have to do to justify what they are charging.

LMAO did u just compare GIANT to some company selling OEM frames under their branding? Kek

well, you buy an insurance for having a great day on a bike not breaking down somewhere or dnf a race, that is what people pay for: TRUST in the brand....of course, i do know guys who buy stuff because its cheap and they would never admit, that they have trouble with it...

That's assuming that Shimano and SRAM components never have issues, which is far from the case. I wasn't really paying attention when the first electronic group sets became common, but others comment that they had their issues, even on race days. I would assume they still do, to a much lesser degree, though the rare times they still have issues the problems are probably more quickly and painlessly corrected.

Also, engineering and design missteps are still non unheard of for the big boys, as stories of Shimano's delaminating cranks caused many people huge headaches and even injuries.

But I wasn't talking about the upper end of the market. I was talking about the mid and lower tiers, where electronic geoupsets can really shine on a price/performance ratio, but Shimano and SRAM keep the tech walled off to only high performance and super high price because they have no real reason not to price it as such. Now, perhaps, they'll have a reason.

Don't forget the market pressure on SRAM and Shimano to price their stuff more reasonably or at least offer lower-end electronic parts. Ocme economies of scale kick in, there's no reason why electronic parts should command such a premium price compared to mechanical groupsets. There's SO many small precise parts that need to fit and function perfectly in order for a 10-11-12 speed groupset to shift reliably, and do so over hundreds and thousands of miles of use. I can't wrap my head around why that is the cheaper option, other than it's tried and true, they have supply networks all in place, the design and engineering for manufacturing is all in place already, etc. etc. and momentum carries it all forward.

well, you buy an insurance for having a great day on a bike not breaking down somewhere or dnf a race, that is what people pay for: TRUST in the brand....of course, i do know guys who buy stuff because its cheap and they would never admit, that they have trouble with it...