Semi-clad Bike Porn

If Google brought you here in hopes of fulfilling your prurient interests, sorry. Not much here to lust over unless inanimate carbon objects tickle your fancy. I have little progress to report on the build of my geared Superfly. All of the parts are on hand, save for a few. I have yet to make a wheel selection. When I last posted about wheel/tire selection, I received a very detailed email response from Chris Clinton, Bontrager Brand Manager. After doing a little more research, I think most of my fears with going non-UST tubeless have been laid to rest.

The criteria I value most in a wheel/tire combo, in order of importance are reliability, performance, ease of maintenance, weight and cost. Reliability is a biggie, encompassing flats, bearing, freehub and spoke life. Radial laced spokes on the rear wheel do not make sense to me. You get half as many pulling spokes, and they're bound to fail. Performance entails primarily low resistance in bearing seals and stiff, efficient energy transfer (no guitar string DT Revolution spokes for me!). Under maintenance, it is a big bonus to be able to service wheels with components readily available at most bike shops. At home, I do all my own wheel maintenance. I probably have collected a few hundred spokes over the years now.  Exotic spokes alone would eliminate most wheels on the market from my selection criteria if it were the most important one. Weight and cost are pretty obvious. The whole rotational weight thing is way overhyped. There are very limited cases where this matters, such if you race crits and are a really good sprinter.  So what 29" wheels are in contention?

• Bontrager Race X-lites, ~1700g, <$900. Tubeless ready, need centerlock adapter for Hayes, standard spokes.
• Mavic C29SSmax, ~1750g, $600. UST compatible, only 6 pulling spokes, proprietary spokes.
• Shimano WH-MT75, >1800g, $560. UST compatible, need centerlock adaptor.
• Stan's Arch/Hope Pro-II, 1786g, $695. Tubeless ready, standard spokes, beefy build but not heavy.
• Stan's 355/DT 240, 1602g, $815. Tubeless ready, standard spokes, XC race build.

I've had really good luck with my Mavic Crossmax's. They are laced 2x on both sides of the rear wheel. Ironically, the new Mavics are laced 2x both sides of front where only braking power is transferred, but 2x just on non-drive side in the rear. Since I do mega-climbing in tiny gears, I just know those six pulling spokes (24 spoke wheel) will die an early death.

I've also had really good luck with my Shimano XTR wheels. Shimano does not make a bad hub. I love the fact they still use real bearings, where you can take them out, clean them, repack them. They last forever. The deal is, they don't have a 29" XTR version yet. The XT level listed above is pretty heavy.

I've received many good testimonials about Stan's rims sealing up well with wide range of tires. Stan offers many rim/hub options that get me into my price target. I'd like to give Bontrager wheels a try, but finding a bargain on a new set is hard to come by right now. I will definitely give Bontrager tires another try.

When I went downstairs to ogle my new frame, I noticed shiny spots on the rear tire of my Dean singlespeed. What the... There were no less than 10 punctures in the rear wheel and 5 punctures in the front wheel. You could see the puncture holes, and every last one of them sealed up. This must have happened at Otis last Sunday. If you ran into a cholla cactus in Tucson, I could see this happening. But what could cause this at Otis? Seems very suspicious to me, like maybe something deliberately was placed to flat bicycle tires. I did make a short foray out of the Otis riding area down the powerlines across Rt 151. I found a kids pump track. Wonder if it happened around there?  The fact the punctures go all the way around the rear wheel tells me I had to ride through at least two meters of spikes. I thought the Stan's would have long since dried up in those tires, but it still did the job.

Five of ten punctures in rear wheel