[Project Complete!] I want to build a carbon wheel... I have a few questions

I think you are right. I think arc needs to be defined more clearly. A rim anatomy diagram would be helpful. I think you solved this for me.

Edit: I get this is for two wheeled deals, but it will be forever odd to me to refer to a front wheel as having a drive side. I think (D)isc and (N)on-disc instead of (D)rive.

Just a teaser, but I made some progress today.

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Look on YouTube for videos of Ali Clarkson doing drops to the back wheel of his trials bike of 10 - 12 feet. He runs on LightBicycle rims nowadays, he was my introduction to them a few years ago (I was ‘influenced’!)

If you want to see more of the abuse carbon can take, Danny MacAskill gives his Santa Cruz Reserve wheels a beating to destruction in this video:

That said, he destroyed a few Reserve carbon rims in Alcatraz making his latest film in San Francisco. This is probably a bit more extreme that you have in mind on one wheel though…

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Thanks for sharing. Great videos. I’m gonna share these with friends.

I stumbled upon these one night on RedBull TV before they went up on YouTube and binge watched them all back to back. As you’ll have seen there is the whole seven part ‘making of’ series as well as the final ‘edit’ video.

One of the tricks is that he rides across the length of the top of a tennis net – when I saw that in the particular ‘making of’ episode I thought about someone doing that on a unicycle…

If you are familiar with the start of Dan Heaton’s “Revolution One” you’ll remember he stops his car, takes out his unicycle, cycles round and then hops up and cycles over the top of the car. Now just imagine the video where someone is learning to ride their unicycle in a tennis court using the net as a support, then they ‘get’ it, cycle round, hop up onto the top of the net and ride the length of it like Danny does in the video… I think that one will just have to live in my imagination though :slight_smile:

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Well, I finished the project. Just wanted to leave a note about how it all went. I had a great time, and will likely build all my wheels from now on - but I have learned some ‘cons’ for carbon rims that I wasn’t previously aware of. It’s really just a cost-to-benefit nitpick.

Firstly, though, I need to give a HUGE shout out and thank you to @mindbalance for them fielding endless questions from me. They were endlessly kind and helpful. I am just so grateful. I’m also grateful to everyone who chipped in and helped in this thread. Thank you thank you!!!

I got the spokes and nipples from https://www.spokesfromryan.com/. The delivery was fast, the ordering easy, and that is even with me being in the USA. The only nitpick is I chose black Sapim nipples and the paint did chip off at the edges almost instantly when tightening. No big deal, but its a note.

My experience with https://www.lightbicycle.com/ was overall pretty great. The product is fantastic, and very polished. The shipping was a considerable portion of the entire bill, which never feels great - but that is the case with almost everything I buy uni-related (including UDC which is like two states over from me). I will say that I think some of the instruction text could be improved, but no biggie.

I weighed everything. I weighed my original steel 27.5 uni with Duro Crux. I weighed the new Mad4One aluminum 27.5 with Minion. I weighed the aluminum wheelset and the carbon wheelset. The carbon wheelset (cranks+pedals+spokes+nipples+fluid+tire+hub+tape+bearing+spacers+valve) ended up being about 1.5 lbs/680g lighter than the aluminum setup. This is somewhere around a 15-20% decrease, which is likely significant. Eh, for the huge cost I’m not sure it is worth it for weight savings. I also didn’t love going back to Presta valves, and now dealing with the trouble of seating a tire and all that jazz.

With that being said, the real test is how it treats me over the next few months on trails. And I’m excited to see how it goes.

If anyone is reading this and contemplating building a carbon rim, I think I’d recommend really asking yourself why. If it is for weight savings, I’m not sure it is worth it unless you have a very specific goal. For example, when you go tubeless, you lose the mass of the tube BUT pick up about ~half~ of the mass in sealant. Again, no big deal, but just things I’ve learned. I’d also mention that there are other things that creep in. In other words, the story is always more complicated. The cost wasn’t a huge concern for me, but it did end up costing almost as much as a new quality unicycle-ish-ish.


The final product on the Mad4One.


Rotor installed!


Got the tire on.


All laced up.


Just a worktable shot.

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I’ve always preferred Presta valves over Schrader (and Woods!), maybe that goes back to my first “proper” bike with 700c wheels and 18mm tyres, then moving on to Tubulars…

With respect to seating tubeless with Presta, if you remove the Presta valve-core and use a Presta to Schrader adapter and put your compressor onto that you should hopefully get enough airflow to seat it, granted the hole isn’t quite so big as a Schrader valve stem with the valve removed. but hopefully it is enough.

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Yeah so here’s the thing: I don’t have a compressor. Thinking about getting one, but it’s one more of the complications or layers of complexity here. Anyways I seated a tire twice with a regular hand pump.

If you don’t have a compressor you can get charge bottles, it’s a canister that you pump up to around 100 psi using a track pump so that you can rush the air in to seat the tyre bead.

There about £50 but I made mine for next to nothing using parts from my work.

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Woah. I love it. I want one.

Fair enough, good on you for doing it with a hand pump I wouldn’t have contemplated that; I always just screw the pressure up on the compressor so it gets dumped into the tyre :slight_smile:

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It worked fine. For a quick second it seems like it won’t happen, and then it does.

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Great job, congratulations.

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Ryan-
Looks ace! :1st_place_medal:

I can see the point of view that this ultimately may be in effect an excessively expensive way to arrive at a 27.5” uni-wheel.

I’ve never ridden a carbon wheel so can’t say it is better - worth it etc etc - but my gut still says you’ll find this new ride growing on you more and more… and perhaps you’ll notice small hard-to-quantify aspects like the way the tyre rides / is responding to rider input (etc etc)…

Then again - sometimes having a “nice” luxury item can kick into the placebo sensation of being somehow nicer - when it is within a small margin the same as an off the peg aluminium rim build.

I am already twitchy with excitement for the February delivery of the schlumpf hubs so I can finally see what a carbon build looks and feels like.

Glad the build is complete for your new unicycle -
Ride like the wind!
-Felix

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Much appreciated! Thank you!

Much thanks again! And, after just coming back from my first 6 mile mountain ride - I could eat my words just a tad. The things I stated still stand BUT it was a clearly more agile and nimble ride. If you can afford one, it’s worth it - or at least thats my initial thoughts after a functional ride.

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One of these was my poor man’s compressor for a while. I just filled it at the gas station for free or used a 12 volt cigarette lighter compressor I had in my car to fill it (slow!)

https://www.harborfreight.com/5-gallon-portable-air-tank-65594.html

Of course it’s not much more to just get something like this
https://www.harborfreight.com/3-gallon-13-hp-110-psi-oil-free-pancake-air-compressor-57567.html

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Thanks Blueblade. Yeah, the bigger conversation in my head is that we recently bought our first home. I will factually buy a compressor at some point, but I want to think about bigger picture uses (and what size that may mean) than just filling cycling tires. With that said, your options are great.

In the end, it turns out I seated the tire (twice so far) easily with no compressor. I just had to ‘get it’ as far as technique and all that. As far as I’m concerned, a compressor is absolutely not necessary.

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That’s when I bought my real compressor, when we got our house-- I got a bigger sized one, 6hp 33gal Craftsman back when Sears was still in business.
I have to say, I have used it a ton, way more than I thought I would have. A lot of the traditional air tools are now possible with cordless Li-Ion tools now (like an impact wrench, air ratchet, grinders, sanders, etc), but there are so many uses for compressed air (“sweeping” out the garage, cleaning/drying parts, detailing the inside of your car, cleaning air filters, etc). I also use it for roof/finishing/brad nailers, the air hammer, etc, and of course inflating things.
I prefer my cordless wratchet and impact wrench over air tool versions now though- no need to be tethered to an air hose. I wish I would have got a vertical one though–less floor space consumed, and I don’t think i really need 33 gal either, probably 20ish would be plenty.

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That Craftsman is a classic, one of those and a smaller pancake compressor for when you don’t need 33 gallons but still want high pressure air is the way to go. Also helps to blow out sprinklers having all 33 gallons of air at a time to pump through the system. For cycle tires tires I only have tubes and just use a hand pump, never found it all that time consuming and I don’t have to get out the compressor.

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