Wheels For Expedition Cycle Touring
A wheel is not a single item but an assembly of individual parts. It’s the combination of those parts and the way they’re put together that results in a true expedition-grade wheelset.
What you’ll need from your wheels, first and foremost, is the ability to take thousands of miles of gruelling, heavily-loaded, all-terrain riding in their stride. Just as with the bike as a whole, strength and durability are key qualities of a touring wheelset. An extremely strong wheel is particularly important at the rear of the bike, as this is where the weight of rider and luggage are most concentrated and rotational forces (ie: torque) from the drivetrain is at its greatest.
Serviceability is also important. Choose standard parts from mainstream manufacturers, so you can easily find parts and supplies to service your wheel hubs every few months, and find the right-sized tyres and innertubes in the places you’re planning to ride in.
Globally speaking, so-called 26-inch tyres and tubes for 559mm-diameter rims are more widely available, though this statement is somewhat simplistic, as I’ve written about elsewhere. Hubs that run on ball-bearings, however well-sealed, will eventually require servicing, so you’ll need to ensure your toolkit includes the right-sized cone spanners and suitable all-purpose grease (though you can usually borrow a spoonful of grease from the nearest car mechanic).
If you fit V‑brakes to your expedition bike, they will eventually – perhaps over a period of several years – wear down the braking surface of a rim to its minimum acceptable thickness, necessitating rim replacement. This always means a full rebuild of the wheel in question – and if you can’t find a like-for-like rim replacement, it might also mean a new set of spokes of a different length to suit the new rim’s profile.
Prolong the life of your wheels, then, by choosing a durable rim in the first place, and actively avoiding the worst conditions for brake longevity (ie: combinations of abrasive dust or mud, wet, and very long downhills). The same will be true if you go with disc brakes instead of V‑brakes, which act upon a separate disc rotor instead of the rim (though this itself introduces a new set of maintenance concerns).
For the rims of my ultimate expedition bike’s wheels, I chose the Dutch-designed Ryde Sputnik V‑brake-compatible rim in the 559mm-diameter size and with 36 spoke holes per rim. The decision was mainly based on its reputation as a bomb-proof world touring rim. It accepts 26-inch tyres with a range of widths from 28–62mm, or up to 2.4″. This upper limit is considerably wider than most riders would choose to go, and wider than any of the popular Schwalbe Marathon tyres currently available (more on tyres shortly).
(This rim was previously known as the Rigida Sputnik – only the name has changed.)
Strength being key, the extruded double-wall box-section rims are more rigid and less in need of truing than other designs. Double spoke eyelets will help distribute stress more evenly, and the thick, durable alloy braking surfaces (and regular cleaning) will ensure the rim will last as long as possible when used with V‑brakes. Wear line indicators will help with planning ahead for wheel rebuilds, should that ever be necessary.
I chose 36 spokes per wheel, which is accepted wisdom in long-term touring circles, as well as common sense (and the number of spoke holes of the Ryde Sputnik). More spokes means greater strength, all else being equal – plus, if a spoke does break (it happens), it’s less detrimental to the wheel as a whole. (Thought experiment – imagine a 48-spoke tandem wheel next to a 28-spoke racing bike wheel of the same size. Which is stronger?)
The Schrader valve holes (that’s the larger of the two, used on practically every motor vehicle in the world) of the Sputnik will allow for tubes with either valve type, and on a world tour you never know when such options might be your saviour. In a pinch, you could always take a drill to the rim and enlarge a Presta valve hole, but it’s better to start out with maximum compatibility options.
For hubs, the key is durability in the first place, followed by ease of maintenance worldwide. This points to hubs that use a traditional cup-and-cone axle design running on loose ball bearings. If this sounds like gobbledygook, know that it just refers to the way bike wheel hubs have been made for decades – meaning maximum compatibility, bike-mechanic familiarity and ease of adjustment and replacement with basic tools and spares.
(Park Tool, as usual, have a very thorough article on servicing cup & cone-bearing hubs, which includes exploded diagrams and photos of disassembled components.)
The same goes for the compatibility of parts in the case of the rear hub assembly. Rear hubs with replaceable, cassette-compatible freehubs – ie: the splined extension protruding from the drive-side of the rear hub, that spins freely in one direction only – are now the standard on all decent-quality bikes. Spare cassettes – ie: the assembly of different-sized toothed sprockets attached to the right-hand side of the rear wheel’s hub – are easily found.
In terms of cross-manufacturer compatibility, SRAM and Shimano cassettes tend to be interchangeable as long as they have the same number of sprockets, and Shimano freehub bodies can be mixed and matched between several different ranges and generations, making Shimano hubs a good bet. As a rule of thumb, most manufacturers of entry-level parts produce Shimano-compatible products to match what most entry-level bikes leave the factory with.
Some will argue that high-end hubs with sealed cartridge bearings are also a valid choice for world touring. There is certainly something in this: they don’t just run maintenance-free for longer, but they’re also easier to service: changing the bearings is a simple job of slotting in the new cartridge bearings you’ll be carrying with you.
However, you’ll also pay several hundred pounds extra for the privilege, and your wheels will eventually need overhauling or rebuilding for some other reason. When this happens, all you’ll need to service a standard Shimano hub is some all-purpose lithium grease, some standard 3/16″ ball-bearings and some standard cone spanners. Cartridge bearings and other parts for high-end hubs are non-standard and thus hard to find, and if you suddenly need them in the middle of nowhere, you’re in trouble.
Hubs are susceptible to the ingress of dirt and water over time, so hubs with good-quality external rubber seals are preferable to those without. Properly installed, such seals keep out road grime and moisture and ensure that your wheels run smoothly for longer through the extreme conditions you’re likely to encounter.
When it came to choosing wheel hubs for the ultimate expedition bike, the choice at the time was between steel-axled Shimano Deore LX HB-T670 (front) and FH-T670 (rear) hubs, as pictured below, and the similar but aluminium-axled Shimano Deore XT T‑8000 hubs with additional weather sealing from rubber dust caps.
Unfortunately, according to feedback from Richard’s customers, the XT hubs were exhibiting reliability problems on long tours. LX hubs, then, are what I used on the prototype. Today you’ll find the almost-identical Shimano Deore HB/FH610 hubs in the current specification of the Oxford Bike Works Expedition. Regularly checked and serviced, there’s no reason they shouldn’t also last a lifetime.
(Shimano’s ideal but currently non-existent expedition touring bike wheel hub would feature both steel axles and rubber dust caps for double-defence weather sealing. If you really wanted to, you could probably thread a Deore steel axle with XT seals, washers and locknuts to create your own.)
The hubs mentioned above are designed for V‑brakes, which means they don’t have machined mating faces and bolt holes for disc rotors. If, after reading through this discussion, you go with disc brakes, you’ll also need disc-compatible hubs. Luckily there are direct equivalents in the Shimano LX range: the HB-T675 rear and FH-T675 front hub.
(If you’re obsessed with maximum mechanical redundancy, you might have your V‑brake-compatible rims built onto disc-compatible hubs for cross-compatibility with both braking systems. Some might also argue that the shorter spokes of a wheel built onto a disc hub with a bigger flange diameter also translates to a slight increase in strength.)
When it came to spokes, my ultimate expedition bike’s front wheel was laced with silver Sapim Race double-butted spokes in a three-cross pattern. The rear was laced with the Race on the non-driveside and Sapim Strong plain-gauge spokes on the drive-side – which is where the chain and cassette are located, the rotational forces at their greatest, and breakages most likely to occur – for extra strength.
Sapim spokes are widely considered the best in the industry in terms of quality and strength. DT Swiss also have a very strong reputation.
Now, an important note on buying wheels for touring bikes.
Though factory-built wheels are much better quality than they used to be, and you’ll find them on most mainstream touring bikes, few machine-built aftermarket wheelsets manufactured at scale are designed and built specifically for expedition touring.
This is why I strongly recommend having your wheels hand-built by a reputable wheelbuilder who is experienced in building touring and expedition bike wheels.
Yes, this will undoubtedly cost more. But when you finish choosing your ideal rims, rim tape, hubs, spokes, etc, you’ll probably find that your precise combination isn’t available commercially anyway; at least, not outside a handful of true touring bike specialists. In any case, hiring a wheelbuilder also gets you the advice of a specialist, who will usually be happy to talk through your choices and perhaps even help improve your final wheelset specification.
Just ensure they give you a few spare spokes of the various lengths involved to take with you – I recommend at least two rear drive-side spokes, one, rear non-drive-side, and one front spoke. You can then Gaffa-tape them to a seatstay or another available part of the frame where they’ll be out of the way.
Though I’ve built wheels myself in the past, hand-built wheels are among the most critical parts of an expedition touring bike, so wheelbuilding is one thing I’d rather leave to an artisan. Ross Speirs built the original wheels for my prototype, though he’s since retired. Your local specialist touring bike shop will almost definitely help you here.
Reviews, Building & Installation Advice, and Retailers for Wheelsets
- Want to build your own wheels? First read the classic reference The Professional Guide to Wheelbuilding by Roger Musson.
- Use the DT Swiss spoke calculator to find out what spokes you’ll need for your hub/rim combination.
- Buy the Ryde Sputnik 26-inch rims online in the UK from Spa Cycles.
- Buy the Shimano Deore FH-T610 36-hole front hub online in the UK from Tredz, Spa Cycles (also in-store) or eBay.
- Order the Shimano Deore HB-T610 36-hole rear hub online in the UK from Tredz, Spa Cycles (also in-store) or eBay.
- Order Sapim spokes from Spa Cycles.
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