new wheels

Jason having let the cat out of the bag about his new WTB wheels for this coming season and its got me thinking about my wheel set-up for this coming season. The Delgado Disc 29'er rims I have on my current set have been a bit disappointing to say the least. Initially I thought they only sucked because I built the wheels myself but after taco'ing my first front wheel and having a professional build the second and then quicking f'ing it up, I've decided to go a different route this season. I'll keep the current set-up as my training wheels and race back-ups until the rims finally give up the ghost for good and I'll use the new set for racing.

I shot a couple of e-mails back and forth to Big Gay Al over at Bikeman.com the other day and we came up with a pretty good set-up:

Bontrager Mustang 29'er rim (good price, reasonable weight and tubeless compatible)

Butted spokes and alloy nips (not much to say here)

DT 240 hubs (light, reliable and not super duper expensive)

At the time it seemed like a good set up but after a bit more research I think I'm going to go with Hope P2 hubs again this year. They are only slightly heavier than the DT's but at a full $200 bucks cheaper than the 240's I think I can live with a few more grams.

I'm pretty psyched to have the potential for running my tires tubeless this year as well. I could never get the salsa rims to run tubeless because the rims were so wide that standard rim strips just didn't cut it. With a bit of work I probably could have jerry rigged something but I'm not into that type of thing typically, especially when I'm racing. The last thing you want to have happen at a critical point in a race is for some dumb-ass work around that you figure out fail on you. Or even worse, worry constantly about the jerry rigged component and therefore never race full on. Anyway, tubeless good, tubes not so good.

Of course, I'll have to scrape up some jing to pay for them first though.