genejockey 

What are people using for building up wheels for classic/vintage bikes nowadays? I have a mid 90s Cannondale R500 I'm building up - it was my first road bike - and I don't have a matched set of wheels!

SurferRosa

I find my hubs and then my rims. A '90s Cannondale affords you more choices, possibly more modern looking, and dark anodized.

Het Volk

Seems to me, a mid-90's bike allows you basically to build with anything aluminum. Mavic Open Pros are as good as any, and those were around at the time that Cannondale was around.

If you want to find something from that era, NOS rims can be found, albeit a little more difficult.

randyjawa 

Rims for vintage bikes is a pretty big area to cover in this a single thread. There are several brands, brand models, sew-up, clincher, bare metal, anodized, machined..

To make things easy, when I go period correct, I hunt for and use the proper wheel rims, which for me means bare metal and sew-up...


or bare metal clincher (getting harder and harder to find)...




But for my riders there is only one choice these days - clinchers with machined braking surface (if not seeking original issue for restoration this sort of rim is the way to go)...


As for the ordinary old school anodized rims - I will never buy another set as long as I live. Look great on day one but not so good starting on day two of use. Sooner or later you have a pristine road bike with ugly rims...

Nemosengineer 

Ambrosio Excellence rims are a great neo-vintage rim at about 460 grams, welded joint, double stainless eyelets, very true, available in 36, 32, 28 drillings, and Italian made. I have a set on my AlAn restomod, there is still NOS out there. https://labicicletta.com/products/am...=5531963818015

20190520_174041 by nemosengineer, on Flickr

20191230_125117 (1) by nemosengineer, on Flickr

: Mike

hsuBM

I wish there were more comments about the Boyd Altamonts when they were still in stock before I had my latest wheelset built. They seem like cool rim if you can get them in either ceramic gray or plain aluminum without the black paint.

So far I like the H+ Archetypes a lot. Good looking, perfect braking surface. My wheelbuilder said lacing them up with aerolites was the easiest build he’s done.

BradH

The Sun M13II is usually my first choice. The width and erd are identical to most vintage box section rims. They come in 32 or 36 and polished, black or natural aluminum finish. The only problem is that for the past year or so there hasn't always been a consistent supply of the drilling and color you need.

genejockey 

It seems like when I do find rims, they're ungodly expensive - way more expensive than I can justify for what is really meant to be a bargain restoration. Or they're out of stock except in the wrong spoke count. I wonder how much of this is the Pandemic? Both on the supply and demand ends of the equation.

icemilkcoffee 

A mid 90's Cannondale R500 would have the common 130mm rear drop out spacing. You literally have a mountain of wheels to choose from on Craigslist.

RiddleOfSteel

Since you have a '90s R500 and live in the Bay area, I'd say your choices are vast. Why? The larger diameter tubing gives the bike a more modern look--you should see the '80s catalogs with Campy NR on an SR--talk about two (visual) worlds colliding--which makes it easy to put more modern wheels on it and still look normal, or put period-correct wheels on it and have it look just fine as well. Do you have a picture of the bike? I'd just find a nice, used $100-150 set of (matching) wheels and be done with it. They're a dime a dozen in any bike-crazy metro area, and if they're of solid quality, are a bunch cheaper than building a la carte (buy rims, buy spokes, buy hubs).

Fahrenheit531 

If you're buying new you can't go wrong with H+Son.

genejockey 

Not too photogenic at this point, stripped of everything but the cranks and stem! BUT it's the 3.0 frame in Cobalt metallic, with the cantilever seatstays

RiddleOfSteel

I found a 1994 R500 in the catalogs that matches that description exactly. RX100 components? Cool stuff. Mavic MA2 rims were on a lot of things from that era and earlier. Not too dissimilar from the Mavics that came on the R500 stock. You definitely have some flexibility, as I stated earlier. Cobalt goes with lots of things!

genejockey 

Yep, RX100. But the R500 had a triple, and 7sp. I decided to make it into an 8sp, and double, so I bought a bunch of the A551 stuff off Ebay, so I'm waiting for it all to arrive. At least it's not like it was when I was a kid - "Send in 3 boxtops and wait 6-8 weeks!". Except the rear downtube shifter. That's coming from Italy, and the ETA is March 15.

genejockey 

Update: After poring over Ebay listings and websites and watching a couple videos, I decided to hold off on buying/building any new wheels, since I'm practically swimming in them. Instead, I'm going to replace the crunchy bearings in the front RX100 hub, and then pair that wheel with an Ultegra/MA3 rear, because the rim profiles aren't that different - especially when they're 3 feet apart! - and the polished hub/anodized rim look is at least consistent.

Next question is tires.

70sSanO

I rode MA40’s for years. I replaced them with anodized H+ TB14’s.

John

canyoneagle

Mavic Open Pro is an easy go-to for me.
Ambrosio Excellight are very nice but a bit harder to source.

otherwise, one can find NOS rims on eBay, typically at a premium