rch427

I'm finally getting around to building-up my 1950s Rochet porteur, and am wondering what my options are in the confusing realm of 650B rims. I want bare alloy clinchers (no anodizing, paint, big graphics or the like) and hope to keep all of the components French on the bike.

So, what are my options? Did Mavic, Wolber /Super Champion or Rigida make 650B clincher rims? Anyone else? And any suggestions on where to source them would be appreciated. Ebay.fr isn't turning up anything useful.

gugie 

First, post pics of your Rochet!

Here's some rim options with links:
SOMA
Velo Orange
Compass

nlerner

Another option to keep things French (or at least buy from a French vendor):

https://www.xxcycle.com/rim-ambrosio...eriale,,en.php

ThermionicScott 

Sounds like you're after vintage/NOS options (you might try poking around www.velobase.com for ideas), but here's a blog that attempts to keep track of current production rims: https://supplelifeblog.wordpress.com.../23/650b-rimz/

USAZorro

Grand Bois Papillon.

jamesdak 

Velocity also...

They did mine.

JohnDThompson 

I built my wife's 650B wheels using Velo-Orange «Diagonale» rims. Nice, polished (not anodized) finish and a very small, discrete "VO" label that could be removed if it bothers you.


https://velo-orange.com/collections/...nale-650b-rims

Hoopdriver

I have these rims on my bike. They look great, were easy to build up, and were reasonably priced. The "VO" label is tiny.

jlaw

Pacenti (Brevet) makes a nice silver 650b rim with eyelets, a machined braking surface, and one small brand label on it for $99. He also sells 650b wheelsets using the same rims.

https://pacenticycledesign.com/colle...vet-rim-650b-1

I built a set of wheels using these and they have stayed true and look good.

63rickert

All of the old French makers mentioned in top post did make 650B rims. By going to ebay.fr you went to the right place. If you have to have correct originals you could watch the new listings a long time. Remember that 650 almost went out of existence. The Confrerie de 650B tried hard to keep it going but had little success until the American market kicked in. In meantime they were riding a lot and using up the good rims. Most original 650 rims always were steel. Fairly high end French bikes used steel later than you might think for the reliability. Even those are hard to find without rust. One other spot to look is under listings for complete wheels. You might have to take wheels and hubs you don't want to get what you are looking for.

Other posters have been through all the likely suspects. There are lots and lots of mountain/gravel rims not much suitable for a 50s Rochet. The two rims that look a lot like a French original are Grand Bois and Pacenti. For a bike that will be used either of those are probably better than original.

rch427

[QUOTE=gugie;20541416]First, post pics of your Rochet!

I'll pull it out of the storage room tomorrow and see what kind of photos I can take. There's not much to see right now; it's just a bare (chromed) frame.

rch427

[QUOTE=nlerner;20541518]Another option to keep things French (or at least buy from a French vendor)

The French thank you for your support.

I'm not sure how, but I ordered two rims, but when the box arrived, it contained four live crayfish and a used boot.

rch427

Thanks for the suggestion and the link, ThermionicScott! That's an amazing site; I've spend a couple of hours today going through it! (I tried to register, so I could use their advanced search feature, but for whatever reason, it won't accept my log-in.)

rch427

Wow -- those are beautiful! I wish I had a '60s Cherubim to mount them on...

rch427

Those look great! If I can't find decent vintage French rims, these would be a good Plan B.

rch427

Those are all good points.

I do prefer period-correct parts, as much as is practical. Since all of my frames are in their original finishes, I think it looks best when all of the components are likewise a bit worn, so new rims would look odd. These would be perfect, but for the fact that one of the rims is 40-hole, and I need both to be 36: https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Vintage-Mavi...a/372418507193 I'm going to write the seller and ask if the'd sell just the one I can use, but they'll probably decline. You're right that buying complete wheels is more likely to yield a matched pair, but the shipping from France for two built-up wheels would be painful. These are *almost* justifiable: https://www.ebay.fr/itm/253844361784

rch427

Thank you all for the suggestions, gentlemen!

63rickert

Those Atom/Mavic Criterium wheel look just right to me for an old porteur. With a bunch of reservations. There is just no way to know how good they are. No way to know if they are straight, no way to know how worn they are. You might be buying something great and you could just get stuck. Caveat emptor. Am also dubious about the shipping on that item. Just plain sounds low and I have gotten used to overseas vendors who ask for more than quoted before they will ship. The other way to look at it is new Pacenti rims are $100 a pop and you could swallow a loss or two and have wheels that are just exactly what you want.

Full chrome on a porteur? Wow. There was such a thing as a gentleman's porteur. Alex Singer is still making those. Most porteurs would have had steel rims and more than a few problems.

ThermionicScott 

Hopefully you're not thinking of buying those just to tear them apart for the rims. That would throw away a lot of value if the wheels truly are "in good condition to roll." I'd only be looking at those in the context of bolting on a complete authentic wheelset if I got lucky rolling the dice.

I bought a few of the Pacenti Brevet rims when they came out, and while I still haven't finalized the build plans, I'm very impressed. They look great (many have striations from extrusion, but you also see this on some of those old Mavics), they are lightweight in the hands, but don't feel flimsy at all. And they arguably support wide tires a little better than some of the vintage rims -- Pacenti Brevets are 19mm inner width, whereas the Mavic Module 3's seen earlier were only about 14.5mm and intended for 28-32mm tires.

More on that last bit: You may have already read this, but as French cyclists came to favor skinnier 700C tires in the 1950s, demand for wide 650B tires fell, so a lot of frames and rims after that were designed around 32mm 650B tires. That's why the Confrerie de 650B chose to have Michelin make their tire in 32mm, and also why Grand Bois had the Cypres tire as one of their earliest offerings. This is sort of a roundabout way of explaining why a lot of the vintage aluminum 650B rims you'll find for sale are based on skinnier extrusions, if that's a consideration for your riding.

fordbailey

They seem to be really nice rims. I have a pair built by Pacenti with high flange hubs and thy look fantastic. I haven't ridden them yet as I'm in the middle of building the bike they're going on. They look right at home on a vintage bike. They are also (if you care) tubeless ready.

rhm

Pacenti rims are really nice. I've also used Weinmann Zac 19 (which are cheap) and Velocity Synergy (not so cheap) and was not happy with either one; it was difficult to get the tire to seat properly on either. The tires seated perfectly on the Pacenti rims on the first try.

rando_couche

...and Pacenti: https://pacenticycledesign.com/colle...vet-rim-650b-1

todds

Hey All,

I realize this thread is over a year old but I thought I'd put this here for some info since I'm going thru this right now on a lovely old "Calla" brand Alsacienne randonneuse of the early 50's. The bike came with maxicar solid hi-flange wingnut 50's hubs and nameless alloy 650b rims of a fairly wide outer width. I've been able to source some super champion 58's and some mavic citeriums in the 650b size, both of those rims have slightly different widths to my originals. These alloy 650b rims are very hard to find since most 50's randos came with awful-but-strong steel rigida rims with textured braking surfaces and name brand alloy rims would've meant quite a significant upgrade back then. The reason rim width is more important than you may realize is that the bikes also generally came with mafac criterium cantilever brakes. This means the posts and width of the braking surface might be quite far off if the rim width isn't somewhere in the ballpark of the original. There is some wiggle room built into the design of the mafac cantis, which are great brakes, but if you go too far in one direction you'll have pads that are contacting the rim at a very weird angle and generating a LOT of squeal (ask me how I know) .

Nameless originals on maxicar solid hi-flange 50's wingnut hubs, no eyelets, 25mm
Super champion 58's on maxicar drilled hi-flange 60's-70's quick release hubs, no eyelets, 21mm
mavic criterium on normandy drilled hi-flange 50's quick release hubs, eyelets, 22mm
steel textured rigida's on god knows what 50's steel wingnut hubs, 25mm

A way around this is the grind down the new pads to have the same angle but it's not ideal and will get worse as your pads wear. I would suggest using a similar width to what your brakes find happy :-)

Also, the other posters where right in that almost all of the original rims I bought or carried back from france (often sourced as a full wheel) were sub-par in one way or another. When it comes to old alloy 650b rims of the 50's caveat emptor! If I had it all to do over I'd probably go with new pacenti's or grand bois or whatever. Originality is a great thing but it's been a loooooong journey.
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Cambridge, MA

ThermionicScott 

Welcome to the forums, @todds! That's some good stuff.

As much as we poo-poo steel rims around here, in a pinch, one could get by with a steel rim on the back. The front is where you want and need the best braking grip; it's not hard to skid a rear tire by comparison. That's the approach I took with my 3-speed, it's much improved with the aluminum rim in front.

Feldman

Don't bother looking for vintage rims--the Pacenti and Velo Orange rims that have been mentioned are of superior quality to old stuff. I have been a working bike mechanic since the mid-1970's and don't believe that I'm hallucinating the differences. There's old stuff that is great and worth using but tires and rims have improved beyond all measure in 40+ years. A pair of Pacenti Brevet rims and some Rene Herse or Panaracer Pasela tires will give your bike new wings.