I’m going to build my first set of wheels over the xmas break. They’re for a CX bike (used for a mix of bridleway and back road riding), cotic hubs and Mavic Open pro rims. Looking at the CRC website there are two options for DT swiss double butted spokes, Competition or Revolution. I’d like to save the 100g weight difference, so as long as I’m careful will the Revolutions be OK for a first build?

Comps are definitely easier to build with. Main difference is that Revs will twist a lot more – and making sure you don’t have twisted spokes (a) is quite important and (b) requires an acquired feel – so making that job trickier than normal first time out is making life a little harder than it need be. That said, if you’re careful you should be ok. Prepping the threads well will help; as will patience of course.

Have mainly used DT Competition or Sapim Race which are similar, but last year I got a set of Revolution spokes from CRC when they were on a special offer, built them up, no different from any other spokes, and have ridden that wheel hard for the last year, haven’t touched it since, it hasn’t let me down yet.

I’d personally recommend not using Revs on a first build – definitely more tricky, and for your first set of wheels you don’t want to be making it more difficult (I speak from experience – my first set were rubbish).

Given the intended use for the wheels (leisure, not racing) is the small weight saving really worth it compared to the more robust, stiffer, stronger and easier to build wheels with Comp spokes? I mean if you’re really after light wheels you surely don’t start with Cotic hub and Open Pros.

Revs are definitely a little trickier to use for a first build. As said above, prepping the threads with a light lubricant will help a lot. Also keep in mind that a lot of experienced wheel builders don’t recommend using Revolutions on the drive-side of the rear wheel, since it’s under higher tension than the non-drive-side and the front because of dishing, plus it is also subjected to the force of the drivetrain in a way that the other side isn’t. This includes Gerd Schraner, the man who wrote the Art of Wheelsbuiding, which is essentially the official DT Swiss wheel building manual.

Using Comp on the drive-side and your weight savings will probably end up at around 75g (play around with DT spoke calculator and see). Not worth it in my opinion for a first build.

That said Revs hold up fine on my builds (with Comp on drive-side though), and I’m a big bastard.

Thanks all, some good points there. I want a robust wheelset that will be interchangable with my existing wheels (hence using the same cotic hubs),so it looks like it makes more sense to get the Comps.

Thanks!