Post your problems in the comments below or email us:
info@justridingalong.com

1 – no rear wheel builder – oops fixed

Further mid-term developments include:
automatic removal of VAT – outside the UK only
showing product prices in Euros

Nathans gold Rush Cannondale

Johns Handsling RT Trigon bike build 

Ex-team mate from long ago John Veness sent us a link to his build on UK Cycle Sport. He ordered the NoTubes ZTR hubs with ZTR Alpine rims for an all round race wheelset.

Luckily he ordered his wheels from us – about the only thing he didn’t try and buy from Hong Kong!

We built a pair of these mini masterpieces up with Enve 65 rims and de-rigeur Sapim CX-Rays for an all-black, no excuses wheelset. The front wheel had to settle for standard stainless steel bearings but the rear is fully kitted out with the new ceramic option and it shows, give it a spin and watch it go, you could brew a pot of tea before it stops.

One thing which nearly caught us out is the cassette lockring. The R45 Campag-compatible hubs include a beautiful shiny aluminium lockring (check it out in the gallery photos below) but you need to choose which size smallest sprocket you’re going to run, and at the moment they are only shipping with 11T-fitting lockrings. If you try to fit a 12T cassette, the lockring won’t do any locking (it fits inside the 12T). And the standard Campag lockring supplied with 11sp cassettes won’t work either; the threads aren’t long enough. So for the moment you’d better break out the strong legs and stick an 11T on there. Not that that’s a problem with 10 other gears to get you out of trouble. It might all work fine with the shorter cog stack of 10-sp Campag and a normal lockring, but we haven’t got any around to try.

A brief word on the availability of all these options. 12T lockrings are likely to be available in 2 weeks, maybe longer, the latest news is that Chris King have just made them. The ceramic bearings are also available as an option on the “traditional” Shimano 8/9/10 speed compatible hubs. And finally, Campagnolo cassette bodies are interchangeable with Shimano ones in case you make the switch one way or the other.

email here>

If you can’t even manage that briefly it includes 15% off servicing in Jan & Feb, new NoTubes Arch EX in stock for rims and wheelbuilds, own hubs builds available now but will be stopped in spring. ZTR Alphas & wheelset in Cycling Weekly and a new website in the pipeline if that’s not enough already.

There is one group of drivers though that really seem to go out of their way to put my life at risk, no it’s not 4×4 drivers, white van men, or people driving Honda Priuses, it’s SUPERTRAM LINK BUS DRIVERS. For those who don’t live in Sheffield, there’s a tram system, and then there are some buses which link the trams in with surrounding towns and villages, and it’s these drivers who seem to have been picked specifically for their inability to drive and deliberate aggression towards passengers and other road users. (Maybe that’s not fair. There is at least one driver who is careful, professional and polite). To make matters worse they’ve recently swapped out the small buses you could just about avoid given cat-like reflexes and eyes in the back of your head, for normal-sized big ones that take up the whole road (and more).

So today as usual I was riding through Wharncliffe Side with one of these devil-buses coming up behind me, and as is increasingly common the bus overtook me a few metres before a bus-stop and pulled straight in forcing me to brake and go round it. I passed it again and banged on the driver’s window. A minute later the bus overtook at speed (being a slight downhill I was doing almost 30mph and it overtook pretty fast) and swerved aggressively at me cutting in right against the curb, and yes, I wobbled a lot, although it didn’t hit me, not quite anyway.

Normally when this happens I just get angry and formulate scenarios in my head where I storm the bus at the next stop, make a scene, obviously deliver a cutting one-liner which makes the driver reconsider their behaviour, before being cheered by the passengers, but of course I never do. This time though I had enough, I had a very dangerous incident with another driver last week which I hadn’t bothered doing anything about and for once, today I wasn’t late getting to work. So I rode straight past work and on to the tram link terminal to have a word.

As I got there I knew I had the right bus driver, I came round the corner of their hut and they were having a joke at the cyclist who’d just banged on the window. I’m sorry to say I lost it a bit and had a minor shouting match with the three of them, especially since they wouldn’t give me the driver’s name. The driver obviously knew he’d driven at me and come too close because he told me that was what I should expect if I went round puddles. One of them slammed the door at me  and then another came out and told me to go away lots of times before pretending to phone “South Yorkshire Transport Police”. Frustrated I rode off a few metres before going back and shouting something incredibly witty like “learn to drive” (that’s the cutting one-liner, folks) at them, and then it was time to get into work.

At work I phoned Stagecoach who run these things. “Oh, you’re the cyclist who assaulted our drivers are you?” I was speechless for a second. Maybe shouting at them does count as assault, I don’t know, the three of them didn’t look very scared at having a skinny cyclist yelling at them, and, y’know, maybe there was a reason I was angry? “Oh well there are 2 witnesses and then afterwards you came back and collared the driver on his own”!! I must have sounded genuinely amazed at that point because the guy on the other end of the phone appeared to believe me when I told him they were making stuff up. “Yes, well anyway, we have CCTV footage and he’s reported you to the police.” Well maybe he was bluffing, maybe not but either way, I just phoned the police myself so we’ll see what happens (they just phoned back as I was typing this out, said they would go and have a word).

So the moral of the story, well I’m not sure really. Make sure you have a blog you can write about them on because you won’t get any sympathy from Stagecoach. I probably shouldn’t have shouted at them in their hut but they were clearly having a joke about it and I lost my temper, while the man at Stagecoach was totally uninterested in working out whether there might be a reason I went 2 miles out of my way to confront them. Certainly I’m going to start using the GoPro to film every journey, I’ve avoided in the past in case it turns me into this angry man who seems to like provoking car drivers, but if I’m going to need evidence before anyone takes complaints seriously so be it. Anyway they’re probably out to get me now so I should be able to get some good footage. Everyone who cycles along the supertram link route has horror stories about the way they drive, I’ve seen it myself from onboard (won’t be doing that again) and I have just had enough of them. If anyone reading this has had run-ins with them let me know and please phone the police to let them know about it. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured by a SL bus.

Demo wheelsets
We’re building up a Pacenti TL28 29er wheelset on DT Swiss 240 hubs  and have a Pacenti TL28 26″ wheelset on American Classic hubs for customers to try.   Please contact us to book these out and tell us the axle type you need and we’ll see if we can help. Deposit required.

Cycling Weekly ZTR Alpha 340 review

Also reviewed were the Hutchinson Fusion 3 road tubeless tyres, an ideal partner for the Alpha 340 rims.

All of these products are of course available to buy in our shop, and we can build the rims onto any hubs or spokes you would like.

Some links to featured products:
Alpha 340 Rims
Hutchinson road tyres
Miche Primato / Alpha 340 instock wheelset
Online custom wheelbuilder

Cycling Weekly ZTR Alpha 340 review

Cycling Weekly Hutchinson Fusion 3 tyre review

A: I would recommend the Velox tubeless repair kits: http://www.justridingalong.com//shop.php?product=82 They repair most holes permanently. If it’s a really big hole then the tyre may be a write-off but it doesn’t sound it from your description. If you have a perceptible bump be careful, it means the tyre’s not seated correctly. With Alphas (actually with many road rims, but especially the alphas) you may need to dust the tube with talcum powder or chalk dust to reduce stickiness between tube and tyre.

A: I just measured some rims for you:

Inside/outside widths

Mavic Open Pro 14.5mm / 19.7mm
NoTubes Alpha 340 17.1mm / 20.2mm
Velocity A23 17.8mm / 22.7mm

A: To get the weight under 1300g and keep the price to £600, it would definitely need to be the Alpha 340 rims. Hope Pro 3 hubs are not particularly light; you would not get the wheels under 1300, more like 1350g with 28h front and rear (the lowest drilling the Pro 3 go to). American Classic road front hubs come in two flavours, the Micro 58 which is just about the lightest hub you can get at 58g, or the 105g “105″ (a large flange hub similar to the mountain bike ones). At 65kg and using the wheels in good conditions during the summer, you would probably find 24h front, 28h rear adequate (and could go less if you really wanted to save the grams). A 24h/28h micro 58 / Road 205 set would come in at 1217g, or with the larger hub, 1264g. From your description of intended use, I would say the American Classic set with a Micro 58 front hub would be the best bet. It’s easily the lightest, and the price is pretty good too. Regarding the spokes, the DT Revolution and Sapim CX-Ray are the equal lightest spokes we use, but the bladed CX-Ray will give a small aerodynamic advantage; I recently saw a test report from Zipp which reckons on 10W per wheel, which is a huge saving, I can’t imagine it being quite that big in reality but it all helps. Unfortunately it adds quite a bit to the cost.

Q: Do you have any problems with American classic ? easy enough to get spares for/reliable etc ?

A: We carry every spare possible for American Classic, actually having said that we don’t have Micro 58 parts but I will ensure that we do get some in. We’ve never been asked for any which is a good sign. Generally, we have no problems at all with AC hubs. They are some of the most reliable around these days.

24/28h should be fine. You could go for 28h both ends if you were concerned but 24/28 is the most common combination we build and there have been no complaints. I would be happy riding them in the Alps and am around your weight.