When I went to make my Stans Crest to tubeless for my new build I noticed the rims are basically wrecked, major damage round where the valve is on one and a huge crack in the other I hadn’t noticed as they were on a commuter.

I have been in contact with another STW member over some ZTR Flow Rims that he’s selling.

My questions are: Would the Crest spokes fit the Flow rims and how hard is it to build wheels, I’m pretty handy at building most things on a MTB, but never done that.

This hard:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g11lhs5l4k[/video]

1. dunno, check the ERD of each rim is similar (Effective rim diameter, dictates spoke length) to within a few mm ideally.
2. Maybe – some folk take to wheel building, some folk don’t. Lacing up from your old wheels is easy though.

Thing is, the worst case scenario is you try and build a wheel and fail- as long as it’s assembled right (that part is easier than building lego) then you’ve done the grunt work and you can get a shop to tension them for you.

My first build was a fatbike set, I had some spoke issues because DT’s spoke calculator is bollocks but other than that it went very smoothly- built wheels on tuesday, tested them on wednesday, did the glentress seven on them on sunday, chilled on monday. Never had so much as a tweak yet and they get worked pretty hard for light fatty wheels with elastic-band spokes.

What really surprised me is that building a wheel’s easier than fixing a bent wheel, I always thought the fact that you’re dealing with something that’s 9/10ths built would make it easier but actually the 1/10th you’re trying to fix is fighting the 9/10ths.

You need to check the exact rims to see what the ERD is. If it’s identical then you’ll be fine, if it’s similar then it becomes a wee bit of a matter of judgement. Claimed ERDs aren’t always 100% accurate but you’d hope that even if Stans claims aren’t right, they’re at least consistently wrong

I would not expect that great a result from a first build

On the plus side discs means the rim can be a fair way ut and the wheel still work

as for spokes if the ERD is the same or very near they yes you can “swap”
Crest – 544
Flow = 542

Essentially 1 mm difference and as spokes only come in even numbers the spokes are probably correct

NB check for yourself re those ERD claims!!!!!!!

My first wheel build was swapping a knackered OE DTSwiss hub in a set of old SOS’s for a Pro2. I eyeballed the two hubs with a ruler (without even stripping the wheel – so I might as well have guess for all the accuracy I had) and decided they were the same size then used the same spokes. That wheel has had the free hub replaced now and while it’s not currently in use was my main back wheel for over two years. The only tool in use was a Spokey.

I’d shudder about the inaccuracy of that build now, but it seemed to work well enough! I’m a lot more careful with my building these days.

OP, just take your time, make sure you won’t be interrupted for the evening and don’t mix up the spokes from either side – and until you’re at the truing stage make sure you turn everything by the same amount. Assuming a 32h three-cross build (normal for MTB) then if you start at the spoke past the valve hole, if you work on every third spoke, you’ll go round the wheel three times before you’ve done each spoke on ‘one’ full pass but you’ll build up tension gradually and have an easier time later in the build. Musson’s ebook is worth a read if you want a textbook. Have fun, and don’t skip the detensioning squeezes or it’ll suddenly go baggy first time out… 😯