What wheels are on your Ibises, Cal?
Phil Forrest
Phil,
The wheelset on my steel IBIS came from my Ti IBIS which I bought off EBAY that came set up for bike polo. These wheels are hand built 32 spoke heavy straight 14 guage with Sun Rhyno Lite rims and brass nipples.
I suspect that the owner was a "Clydesdale" because the bike also came with a set of 180mm cranks. The rear hub is an early Surly 1x1, and the front hub oddly is a 1989 era period correct Suntour XC Pro with Greaseguard. Anyways I am using this wheelset on a bike that I have set up with a Middleburn Pro Trials Guard and 20T-16 for 30 gear inches (Trials Gearing).
The steel IBIS was designed around a Koski tandem fork; the Middleburn crankset is also designed for both tandems and trials; and the Pauls Components front brake is basically a brake for a tandem. The rear brake is a u-brake. The bottom bracket is a FSA Platinum ISIS that features a Ti spindle and quad bearings for stiffness and abuse.
I kinda made this bike sturdy like a pickup truck. Though use of some trick parts this bike is very close to 22 pounds even with a heavy wire bead Schwalbe Big Apple that will be replace with a Rocket Ron for about a three quarters of a pound of weight savings that is rotating mass.
Currently I have a 32 spoke 24 inch Sun Chinook that has a weight of 450 grams on a White Industries standard Uno hub (black) that has straight 14 guage and brass nipples. This wheel will be replaced with a lighter 420 gram 36 spoke Answer Pinnacle Pro that features a machines braking surface and is basically a BMX racing wheel that will be built with 2.0-1.5mm double butted and alloy nipples on another White Industry UNO hub.
The front wheel is borrowed from my Ti Basso (Litespeed) and is a Mavic 231 32 spoke double butted with alloy nipples on a White Industry hub.
Today 29'ers are the rage, but the old 26 inch bikes tend to have lighter wheels that have less flywheel effect, and are easier to accelerate. I also think disc brakes require heavy wheels which exaggerate the physics mentioned above.
Anyways I think of mountain biking as the study of physics in real time. Building a great bike, especially for racing requires a pretty good understanding of engineering. I expect my new wheel to be about 5 ounces lighter, so the response to open acceleration of my even smaller wheel that is stronger than larger diameter wheels is an advantage that I'm exploiting.
The Ti IBIS is very quick to accelerate and with 15 1/2 inch chainstays it climbs like a MoFo and is built for hammering a large gear out of the saddle. Offroad about half your time riding is standing. Also because of the 40 inch wheelbase (very short) and the agressive geometry the handling is hyper fast. I may wire the rear wheel for added strength and lateral stability because this bike exploits standing and pushing big gears.
Cal
