Pete Owen Wheels - thumbs up

[Martin Headon]

I picked up my new custom-built wheels from Pete Owen at Rat Race yesterday and rode them to Box Hill today.

The brief I gave Pete was a set of bomb-proof winter training wheels that would suit 28mm tyres. He set me up with 105 hubs (I could have got cheaper but I wanted ones that came in black), Sapim Race spokes, and H+Son Archetype rims. And on a 3 hour winter ride they were comfortable, solid as a rock, and couldn't be truer if they'd been injected with sodium thiopental.

Also, he took the time to fill in the gaping holes in my knowledge of wheel rim widths and so on, to make sure I was confident I was ordering what I wanted. And it was a very reasonable price too.

I really can't recommend this service highly enough. If you're in the market for new wheels, you really should give him a call before you give your cash to Wiggle.

[David Joss Buckley]

Yeah,  but did you get the Pete Owen Dulwich Blue Red and Yellow Signature Nipples…?  The tinsy bit of bling that makes all the difference… 

[Martin Headon]

Nov 14, 2016 10:23:07 GMT David Joss Buckley said:

Yeah,  but did you get the Pete Owen Dulwich Blue Red and Yellow Signature Nipples…?  The tinsy bit of bling that makes all the difference… 

No, I have a rule to never buy nipples that are prettier than my own.

[Deleted]

Also David, coloured nipples = alloy...a poor choice for a winter wheel. Brass all the way!

[David Joss Buckley]

Nov 16, 2016 14:11:17 GMT chrisbedson said:

Also David, coloured nipples = alloy...a poor choice for a winter wheel. Brass all the way!

Yeah, but three alloy nipples out of 32 is a small price to pay for style, Christopher…

[david emery]

Better not google nipple bling from a work PC. It's not PC I'm sure

[Pete Owen]

Only just spotted this thread - thanks for the kind words!

Alloy nipples used to be a bad choice for a winter wheel, because salty water would corrode them very quickly, but some of them are very good. Sapim's alloy polyax nipples are great quality - with a little care in the preparation* and a little ongoing care**, they can last for ages. I'm just about to sell a pair of wheels I built in 2007 and have ridden thousands of miles on, 7800 hubs on Open Pro ceramic rims built with CX-Ray spokes and silver alloy nipples. They've been to Paris and back numerous times, Dunwich twice, JOG-LE and plenty of other rides in all sorts of horrible conditions in all seasons and they're still fresh and the nipples move easily.

In my experience, rims tend to wear out before nipples corrode. I wouldn't normally re-use alloy nipples anyway. But it's also worth remembering that my wheels have a lifetime guarantee - if you break a spoke or a nipple, or if they go out of true, during normal use (whatever we've agreed the wheel was built for), I'll replace parts and re-true the wheel free of charge.

Thanks for the plug!


* that's my responsibility when building the wheel
** that one's your responsibility - a drop of oil between the spoke and nipple, then spin the wheel to allow centrifugal force to work this into the threads, every couple of months or so is enough. That, and obviously don't leave them sitting in a puddle of seawater. That'll kill most components!