Carbon Fiber wheels

I bought a set of clincher carbon fiber wheels and they are very good. But I would like to get rid of that heavy saddle pack. So I decided to convert to tubeless tires.

Tubeless wheels are often called "two way" since they can be used with or without tubes. Clincher rims have a semi-circular well with a brake track riser with the lock bead on them. Tubeless rims are quite recognizable since they have a deep center well and steps on the side with the same bead lock.

So I ordered a set if tubeless wheels. Communicating with the Chinese is a little difficult. For one thing their vocabulary is limited and for another their use of nouns and verbs is in a different order than ours. But most of the time you don't have any problems. While ordering the wheels the seller kept referring to the wheels as "rims".

When I got the set of tubeless wheels I pulled out the rim liners which allowed them to be used as tube tires, pulled the rim tubeless tape on the front, installed the tire and used a CO2 cartridge for the sudden shot of air to "POP" the tire on the rim steps. I then let all of the air out again, removed the presta valve guts using the special tool that is provided or the fancy one you can get from Park Tool, blew in 2 ounces of sealant from the sealant bottle and rubber hose mechanism and reinstalled the presta valve head and reinflated the tire. You have to roll the tire around a bit to seal all of the small leaks around the perimeter of the tire bead and the tubeless tire presta insert. I stuck it in my truing stand since this can sometimes cause the wheel to go very slightly out of true. Nope.

I then did the same process with the rear wheel. The "POP" was unusually loud and when I put the wheel on the truing stand the thing was over a centimeter out of true. Releasing the pressure and the wheel came back perfectly in true. It was plain that this was a bad rim. Pulling the wheel apart with that sealant in it is sort of messy. But it's biodegradable and I just dumped it in the garden and wiped it out with the new "mechanics rags" which is a sort of heavy paper towel. I disassembled it and looked carefully for cracks to no avail.

So I contacted the seller through Ebay and went through a couple of days of arguments. They wanted a VIDEO of the wheel going out of true as it was filled! Finally I got fed up and requested Ebay for a return. Then the seller sent a message saying that they would send me a new "rim".

It arrived rather rapidly and much to my chagrin it was a RIM and not a wheel.

Perhaps you remember the argument Jay and I had earlier in the year when I said that I could go from a hub with all of the spokes in it and place all of the spokes in a half hour or so. Since then I did it again and timed it to be sure. I have a spoking screwdriver and all you have to do is place the spoke in its proper location and turn the spoking screwdriver until the nipple is on all the way to the spoking screwdriver limits. This takes the entire wheel to the point where you only have to turn the nipple about two turns apiece to tighten them the remainder of the way. You then "ting" them with a spoke wrench until by tonal definition they are nearly the same tightness and then fine tune the trueness and make sure there's no hop. The whole wheel from start to finish only takes perhaps a little over and hour.

But this COUNTS upon all of the spokes mounting in the nipples in a surface that is almost absolutely the same all the way around. Aluminum wheels are like this.

But the thickness of carbon fiber nipple hole is most assuredly not. It hardly takes any difference in the nipple bed of the carbon wheel to give you plenty of problems.

Firstly the spoking has straight spokes on one side and crossed spokes on the other. These are extremely stiff spokes so spoking the rim doesn't allow you to tighten these spoke to the correct tension. The aero spokes won't "cross" properly. You have to take the entire wheel down to very high tension.