After about 6500 miles the rear wheel of my trusty Dawes Horizon touring bike is failing .  Perhaps I’ve over tensioned it whilst trying it up in the past or perhaps it’s the bumps in the roads of London but it’s developing cracks round some of the spoke eyelets.  I’m not worried that there is going to be a catastrophic failure as the braking surfaces still look like their holding out but soon I expect that the spokes will begin to loosen and the wheel will drift out of true.

Initially I had toyed with getting new rims and putting them on to my existing hubs.  As I thought about it, it’s the perfect opportunity to upgrade my wheelset.  I’ve been told many times that putting better wheels on the bike is an upgrade that I’d appreciate.  After doing some internet searches my shortlist was down to Spa Cycles for Exal LX rims with Deore XT hubs for an economic option or  H Plus Son rims with Deore XT hubs for something lighter that would go really well with my stainless steel mudguards, silver pannier rack and silver spokes albeit more expensive.

My thinking was:

• If I ever go travelling the world then I’d probably go for brand new rims at the time, at that point I can go for the Sputnik rims.
• Given that my bike is normally used for commuting I felt that a lighter wheelset would be more useful at the moment.
• Get the best hubs, Shimano ones with their cup and cones are easily serviceable and spare parts availability is good.  Deore XT are top of their range.
• Spa Cycles had all the parts, ordering from them they could supply the correct spokes and avoid me having to order the hubs and rims first and then get the spokes once I’d measured the rims and hubs.
• 36 spokes per wheel given I want something that is robust and there are plenty or potholes around I decided on 36 spokes per wheel, I also like symmetry.
• Double butted spokes for the front wheel with double butted non drive side on the rear and single butted on the drive side.

Having spoken to Spa they persuaded me that the Deore LX hub would be a better option as in their view it us more durable.  As it was also slightly cheaper I took their advice.  Having been informed about this I’ve now found several articles comments where people have come to favour the steel LX hubs over the alloy XT hubs;  Travellingtwo, Woollypigs   and YACF.  Given that in the past I’ve had a hub acquire a large groove in the cup due to a broken bearing I’m not too worried about the future cost of having to replace the a broken hub as long as it is smooth running in use providing I don’t need a new hub every week commuting to work.  I did have some agonising over their suggestion to put a 32 hole rim on the front instead but felt that for a little extra weight and cost in spokes it would be easier to try and more likely to survive the potholes on the roads I travel.

Now time to put to use the wheel truing stand I bought ten years ago for the purpose.  It’s just taken me longer than expected to wear my wheels out and require its use.