Wheels For The Standard Rando

White Industries XMR hubs, Wheelsmith spokes/nipples, and WTB KOM rims.

That took waaaaay too long, but they are finally coming together. What should have been going on in January has finally happened. The parts are paid for and the building of the wheels for the Twin Six Standard Rando is done.

Interestingly enough, I got to do a similar build with slightly different Wheelsmith spokes at work. Same rims and hubs, just all butted spokes instead of what I ended up using. So, I had a bit of practice, which went swimmingly by the way, with these components before I built up my set.

My set uses spokes I had already. After having built up several wheel sets for myself and a few others over the course of a decade, I had quite a few spokes sitting in my spoke drawer in my tool box. I was fortunate enough to be able to use up 64 of them in this build, but the arrangement may be a tiny bit unorthodox. You see, my disc side front and drive side rear spokes are straight gauge black Wheelsmith and the non-driveside rear and driveside front spokes are double butted silver Wheelsmith spokes. All have silver alloy nipples. Weird, I know, but not unheard of.

Straight gauge spokes are considered to be stiffer and stronger, so putting them on the sides that undergo the most stress is often done on wheels. Butted spokes are more flexible and maybe not as strong as straight gauge, but save weight, so using those where I did is something I've seen before. The lengths I needed and color of spoke just worked out the way that it did.

They really don't look as odd as they might seem to by the description. 

I know I could have been rolling on those Stan's wheels a long time ago, and I know these wheels cost a whole heck of a lot more money, but they are what I think are premium hubs and modern, up to the minute rim technology. Plus, these are wider rims internally, and I wanted to experiment with that idea with tires for gravel bikes, which I am reporting on in some future posts for RidingGravel.com.

White Industries designed a super slick end cap to convert these hubs to a 15mm thru axle.

The XMR hubs are super cool in that the front can be easily switched to 15mm through axle simply by pulling the quick release end cap off. Since White Industries designed that end cap to sit flush into the 15mm ID axle, you do not need a separate end cap for 15mm conversion. It is all ready to go once you pop off the quick release cap. Neat! They even put holes into the end cap so you can pluck off the cap with a pick. Super neat! It made converting the set I built up at work a snap. So, now if I ever wanted to switch over to a 15mm through axle fork, I could do so easily. The rear hub is also convertible with swappable end caps, but due to how that overlock dimension (OD) works on the rear, you do need to switch out caps there. (135mmOD vs 142mmOD)

So, now all I have to do is to mount my Avid rotors, SRAM 11 speed cassette, and put the rim strip, valves, and tubeless tires on, and the T-6 Standard Rando should be ready to ride by Monday. I suppose you could say that is "just in time" since the riding season is just cranking up, but that was cutting it close.

I'll have more on the bike, hubs, and how the rims are working out in future posts.