Does "Made In USA" Matter?

Recently Velocity started USA rim production

When I was a kid, (yes- this was a long time ago!), there were a lot of things made in the U.S.A. Even my home town had an agricultural tractor company in it. (Home of the first gas powered ag tractor, as a matter of fact.) It wasn't odd or weird to have cities with factories and products being produced here.

But now it is weird and unusual to see products made in the U.S.A. I know little of anything bicycle related is made here anymore, but recently something happened that added another product to the "Made In U.S.A." column. That would be Velocity rims.

I don't know about you, but I think this fact is cool. I live here in this country, and it makes me feel as though I am supporting other residents that live here if I get a Velocity rim. But does that even matter?

I think the easy, immediate response is "yes", it does matter. But this is a complex question. There are a lot of ways to look at it. When it comes right down to it though, I think I am almost always going to root for the home team and say "yes". Yes it does matter.

New A23's

Well, anyway, here are the Velocity wheels in full view that I just got for myself. Some of you may remember that originally I wanted silver stuff for the "Orange Crush" BMC bike I own. Well, I had to compromise with the original A23 set I had and do all black. That's all there was to have back then.

Okay, then I traded that set of wheels off to get Mrs. Guitar Ted's Kona Africa Bike single speed, (which she loves, by the way), and that left me with no wheels for the BMC for over a month.

Well, with the recent purchase of Mike's XTR/Salsa Delgado cross wheels and these I now have two sets of wheels for the BMC. Nice! Now I'm set for different conditions and situations. Eventually I will get some rim tape to set these up tubeless too.

The new Velocity skewers are pretty sweet for these wheels. Internal cam mechanism, similar to Shimano's, and a classy looking rubberized plastic pearl button on the pivot. I sure hope these clamp near as well as the XTR skewers do.

The rear wheel has an aluminum free hub body, so I can not bring myself to put on any ol' cassette. Nope. Not gonna do it. So, another parts order will be going in for a cassette with a carrier type construction instead of individual cogs that will only dig in and destroy the splines.  kind of a bummer, because I thought I had a cassette like this in reserve, but I must have used it. More waiting...

I was hoping to run these wheels this weekend for the 3GR, but they'll have to wait to make their debut.