Wheelworks Wheelbuilding
People
Every Wheelworks wheelset is individually handcrafted by the best team in the business.
Tristan entered the bicycle industry in 1999 on Vancouver Island, Canada. Fostering a love for bicycles, he backed his career by studying Mechanical Engineering, fusing his adept handicraft with his love for bikes. Equipped with these, he began Wheelworks out of a quest to optimise ride performance.
He is obsessive about mechanical standards and high workmanship, which sets the prestigious standards for what Wheelworks delivers. Tristan is responsible for both designing and building all the proprietary software and tooling at Wheelworks.
Process
Unlike the traditional bikeshop who occasionally builds wheels, we are solely focused on building excellent wheels and delivering world-class service. Our wheel-building process has been honed over many thousands of wheels. We’ve studied the minutia of each and every step in the process to minimise error and inconsistency and maximise wheelset performance and durability. Our processes are so specialised that we’ve had to develop the tooling, machinery and software to build and maintain the quality of each and every wheelset.
Grimlock is a special tool we developed and built to pre-stress our wheels. If you’ve ever ridden a new bike or wheelset and heard pinging from the wheels, or if you’ve ever had a wheel go out of true or loose tension shortly after being built then you’ve seen inadequate pre-stressing.
Rather than rely on boxed spoke lengths in 2mm increments we cut each and every spoke to the exact length needed, down to 0.1mm, and then roll 10mm of beautiful new thread on our Japanese made Morizumi machine.
Each wheel we build is engraved with a unique number and we keep detailed records dating back over 10 years tracking details like spoke length, pre-stress procedure, and even what type of grease was used between the spoke and nipple.
Components
We build Wheelworks wheelsets using only the very best components. Each component needs to be selected for the intended use, and the way they interact needs to be taken into account. For every order, we follow-up with a phone call to learn more about you and your intended use for the wheelset; only then do we lock-in the components and method to be used in your build.
Learn more about some of the components we build with:
Learn about our homegrown hub. Modular, lightweight and high-performance.
Spokes
We use DT Swiss spokes because they're the best. Learn more here.
Maker Rim Brake Rims
Custom rims for custom wheels. Learn more about our Maker Rim Brake Carbon Rims here.
Maker Disc Brake Rims
Custom rims for custom wheels. Learn more about our Maker Disc Carbon rims here.
OG Rims
Custom rims for custom wheels. Learn about our OG carbon rims here.
FLITE Rims
Custom rims for custom wheels. Learn about our FLITE carbon rims here.
DT Swiss Rims
We trust DT Swiss Aluminium rims for our alloy builds. Learn more about them here.
The Personal Touch
To share what we do and how we do it, we can send you photo updates of your wheels being built as we handcraft them. How cool is that?
With these real-time photo updates you’ll get an insight into why our meticulous wheel building process translates into amazing wheels with a lifetime guarantee.
You’ll be kept in the loop with how your decals are made, be able to see your wheels being laced and follow as the wheels are trued to one-tenth of a millimeter (that’s about the width of a human hair, by the way)
These photo updates are available for every wheelset we build - it’s our way of letting you peek behind the curtain and see the skill, effort, and tricks that go into every wheelset we build.
Have More Questions?
Chat with a friendly sales rep about the wheels we love!