Feeding my wheel fetish

5 weeks, 3 rear wheels. Philly knows how to eat them, that's for sure.

It all started when my beloved red/black CXP33 wheelset busted a spoke in the rear. Normally this wouldn't be bad, as it's a 36 spoke wheel. I bought it for $150 from Nashbar back in 2003 and since then the nipples have corroded to the point where if when I try to true the wheel, the nipples strip, one of the downfalls of lighter alloy nipples. Also this is the 3rd spoke I've busted on the wheel since I moved to Philly, so I shelved the wheel and went to wheel #2.

Wheel #2 is one of those dope Mavic Ksyrium SL, black with the shaved rims. It's my race wheel. I was like, I'm not racing, so I might as well ride a dope wheel. Well, that was all fine and dandy for 3 weeks, really it kicked ass for 3 weeks, but after one ride I noticed when I spun the wheel (while in a stand) the crank moved. Not a good sign! So I took the wheel off and noticed one side of the hub had become loose. I decided to loosen it further and before I knew it the freehub was coming off and a sooooper doooper small spring sprang free in my basement. Looked for 30 minutes and haven't found it since. This led to wheel # 3, the ex's wheelset.

The ex's wheelset I acquired when I gave her my Ksyrium Elites when I broke my hand. They are the bottom of the barrell, shimano 500 wheelset. Since over a year ago they've been collecting dust in my basement, so I figured, might as well check 'em out. Well the rear lasted 2 rides (really only 4 hours) before it got uber wobbly on me, when I got home, 3 non-drive spokes were looser than could be believed without the wheel collapsing. I was really lucky I didn't take any sharp turns on these as they went loose on the Saturday World Championships ride.

So Saturday I threw on a rear Mavic Ksyrium Equipe, which had come with my Scott CR1 back in the day (2004). These wheels I've ridden off and on, but thought they'd be my spare "race" wheel if I ever did race again. Well, within a few minutes of a 6 hour ride on Sunday they started talking to me and never shut up the whole ride. It drove me nuts as I'm paranoid as all can be now when it concerns a noise coming from the rear wheel, so today I sucked it up and ordered a new custom built wheelset from Excel Sports built up with DT 340 hubs and 1.2 rims.

Should be a dope set and I'll definitely take a pic of 'em. It blows my mind how hard it is now to find a handbuilt wheelset with normal components these days, it wasn't that long ago you could go to any bike shop (local or online) and find a few different levels of handbuilt road wheels. Now it's freaking hard to find with all those pre-built, hard to service wheels out there. None of those wheels can last more than a few months around Philly.

Hope everyone is out there living the dream!
and riding it too,

-BC