yep, its about 70-90p a spoke. Are they straight pull hubs, might be even more expensive if so.

building a wheel for a friend now and he paid £15 for the 32 spokes. I thought that was a bit steep.

Yep, was mortified about the cost of spokes.

cheapest place for psokes currently seems to be CRC - they haven't (yet) passed on the dt swiss price rises.

Depends on the age of stock. We have mixed stock at various prices. It;s annoying.

BW used to charge 35p each for those, but they have gone up.

CRC charging £15 for 36 spokes.

BTW - 34 spoke wheels?

About £1.20 each at RRP these days...

Which considering the DT comp is the same product as it was about 10 years ago when I worked in the trade, and the RRP was about 35 pence each, I find quite insulting!

Still, it's the way of the world though these days...

And to be fair, most shops would charge you £35 for EACH wheel for a build... Though if they were doing that, they often heavily discount spokes in my experience. They have to make a living to get by on though, worth remembering...

Or of course get the likes of Merlin Cycles, or Chain Reaction to give you a quote... Both seem to build very good wheels, often selling them for less than the individual component costs of the parts that make up the wheel!

Spokes have gone up in price massively. You can thank the currencies as they are, nothing working for people buying stuff imported into Britain from Europe - as I'm sure you're aware. £68 sounds par for the course for 64/72 spokes.

Obviously you can find the odd deal on the internet on old stock.

I got charged £35 for building recently (I laced them, all they needed to do was tension and true) and neither wheel was dished correctly, should have just bought a stand and done it myself.

Too long typing my reply...

These are ordinary spokes, nothing fancy, not staight pull types. 36h rear - 32h front.

RRP on DT Competitions in silver is 75p each.

In the last 10 years the price of almost everything has gone up MB. I renmember a packet of Polos being 10p.

Is there really any advantage of DB spokes over plain guage on a touring wheel?

You can pick up Sapim spokes (arguably just as good as DT) for a lot less, i just got 36 Sapim Race (DB) from SPA Cycles for £15.

At least you don't want white spokes. DT Swiss DB are £2.50 each RRP!

Steel isn’t cheap stuff, Stainless even more so, CRCs – Plain Gauge and DB prices are about as cheap as you’re going to get spokes, as a customer, outside of the trade I’d have thought…

Everything else has gone up in price, why not spokes?

Pete - the wheels I did for you OK?

PG may be a little stiffer but the idea is that DB "stretch" in the middle and so won't break at the elbow like PG.

Not sure if this stacks up in the real world.

Prices are ****ing nuts, steel IS cheap at the moment, stainless is a lot more pricey but even so, weight for weight it's insane. I recently bought a 500mm x 120mm cylinder of mild steel for something in work, £40. Obviously stainless is more, and to have it formed is more again, but stainless steel cutlery is significantly more massive and just as intricately formed, but you can buy sets for a tenner. Supply and demand is the only reasoning.

Try Hardies in Cairneyhill, Craig builds a good wheel and uses Sapin spokes.

Al, they've been really good. I'm going to take that bike to the US in Sept and do some bob trailer touring with them. Fitted with 35mm tyres I should be able to ride fire roads and stuff too.

Sounds like they're charging you their single spoke price. Which is normal in some shops, but does make their wheels very expensive compared to building using spokes you buy yourself in multi-packs.

Are they all a similar spoke length, so they can just use one box of spokes, or are there 2 different lengths?

Would they build up with spokes you provide - you could pick up the right length db stainless spokes (Sapim for sure, probably DT) for about £30 if you bought them yourself.

Joe

As STATO said - Sapim spokes from Spa Cycles

I got 70 Sapim Race DB in silver inc. brass nipples for £31 delivered.

If you're rebuilding a wheel of uncertain parentage (ie bought it second-hand) to put a new rim on it, is the collective view that you can re-use the spokes or is it a new set at each re-build (assuming they fit)?

reuse spokes is fine unless they're too marked from chain coming off cassette.

Everything else has gone up in price

my lbs (high peak cycles glossop) charged me £25 for build and spokes(pair) their robbing you 😯

So, the shop expects to take the spokes, then double that price to achieve an RRP for the spokes, then charge labour for the build on top of that as well...

I can imagine if my local garage tried to pull that off... wouldn't get a lot of business!

parts & labour plus vat, should be the same with bike shops!

Aye,
When I've built a wheel I generally get ACI DB spokes from cyclebasket.com.

Can't complain for 30p a spoke, although it's worth waiting till you need a fair amount as they charge a flat £6 for postage. Very cheap on a lot of good stuff though.

EDIT: or a box of 144 for £26.60! Wow.

Si C

ononeorange - Member
If you're rebuilding a wheel of uncertain parentage (ie bought it second-hand) to put a new rim on it, is the collective view that you can re-use the spokes or is it a new set at each re-build (assuming they fit)?

Re-use is fine.

last spokes I bought were £28 for a box of 100 sapim race db , from outspoken cycles but that was about 18 months ago. Looks like they only stock ACI spoke now http://www.outspokencycles.co.uk/wheelbuilding-accessories.html

Thanks

[i]pitduck - Member
my lbs (high peak cycles glossop) charged me £25 for build and spokes(pair) their robbing you
[/i]

Someone is undervaluing their skills as a wheel builder there. That is a ridiculously low price.

[url= http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php ]Build your own clicky[/url]

i've been building the occsaional wheel with ACI spokes from cyclebasket for the last 10 years and never had a problem with them.

i had two wheels built by a bike shop in redhill for 60 quid including spokes but that was a few years back now.

i used this guide http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html and trued them using a zip tie on the stays!

If anybody anywhere near Farnborough, Hants, wants a wheel building, my price is £30 per wheel incl DT Swiss, SS, DB, black, spokes and standard brass nipples. (Supply your own hubs and rims)

There's a few of my wheels out there doing fine. My own personal pair have been tested in the Alps.

Email in profile.
🙂

sorry i were wrong, £25 per wheel 😳

did you get anywhere any cheaper? I'm going to need a pair building next month and don't have teh patience to do it myself yet!

I've moved over to Sapim on price, built my last set of 819s with them, they seem nice, I'll certainly use them again. But, agreed, spoke price is making me think twice about the point of building my own wheels now, I don't mind paying for quality parts, but when you can buy a built wheel on CRC for less than the parts, it's starts to make less sense.

34 spokes on a Pro III. BUt you may have to buy a pack of 72 🙁

Build price seems OK for the time put in.

Why don't you get some other hubs that arn't straight pull or use other straight pull spokes like above or ask Merlin to build tehm cheaper?

but when you can buy a built wheel on CRC for less than the parts, it's starts to make less sense.

That's very true. You have to scour the land for cheap parts.

I pivked up a pait of wheels that needed attention with Hope Pro2 front & DT Swiss rear hubs and Sun SOS rims...... For £40!
I checked the front over and use it as it is, the rear I keep as a spare with new hub bearings (Flatspot on rim)
I then found a new, 36h Hope XC rear hub (My favorite Hope hub) for £60, and bought another SOS rim and PG spokes for under £40

I've ended up with a pair of beefy Hope hubbed wheels for £120-ish and a spare rear, just in case...

It CAN be done! 😀

SH wheels can often be ****ed though - bearings gone, seized spokes.

SH wheels can often be ****ed though - bearings gone, seized spokes.

I've had a few used wheels, and only had the odd siezed spoke. Bearing are a lot cheaper than a new hub, too.

As an aside, I recently got involved with a project teaching disadventaged kids bike mechanics and repair. The bikes are supplied via the police and various other sources, and are a bit shabby to say the least. But that's the point - Fix them!
I had to quickly true the wheels on an ancient Raleigh Max last time, and was expecting the worst, but, no, every spoke nipple turned perfectly....

😀

Mine has quoted 60£ for building a pair of wheels and he will also provide black revolution spokes for both. 50£ if I go for silver ones.

I don't think you have to look too hard for wheel building bargains. I've just built On One track hubs on Rigida Flyer rims (Parker International) with Sapim Race DB spokes (Spa Cycles) for £93. The cheapest factory set was at least £50 more and would probably have been poorly built.

Buy all the bits from me (rim, hub and Halo spokes at 35p each) and i build wheels for £15. Bring in your own rim/hub, and it's £25. Anyone charging £35+ to build a wheel is either too slow, or profiteering.

I do charge an additional £10 to dismantle a wheel though, to re-use the hub.

Anyone charging £10 to to dismantle a wheel to re-use the hub is either too slow, or profiteering.

Agreed, takes 5 minutes.

Pedalon had dt db silver spokes on offer the other day when I bought some. Circa £45 for 72.

Build + DT comp spokes usually works out at around £30 a wheel at various LBS I use (last build was about 9 months ago £100 for Mavic 317, DT comp and build for a pair of wheeels on my hubs.

jeese you got some expensive prices, local bike shop is £20 wheel build inc dt swiss spokes. Even do a free tune up after first few rides

You can't really build a wheel without them though... 😆

Just got a wheel (very well) built for £15, took them a pile of bits. Did a much better job than I could have done.

DT Aerolite. Now THAT'S an expensive spoke. Thankfully I've not gone for the white ones!

I'm getting a rear built for my commuter for about 15quid ish labour and the same 15 quid for plain gauge spokes, double butted spokes were in the 30quid region, thats about 45p for a plain gauge spoke and 94p for a butted.

however consider the quality of their building skills vs mine given that they would build/true one a week probably and I would do mine once every 3yrs (and the cost impact of buying a truing stand..)

Personally i wouldn't rebuild with used spokes but some do. DB spokes do stretch & over time have a memory so will remain at the stretched length. This means that getting the correct tension again is almost impossible.

However, if the wheel is handbuilt & is only say upto 6 months old & needs a new rim, depending on use/condition then yes i may well reuse them.

You guys need to remember that building the perfect wheel takes practice & time, years for the best. There are many on here that i am sure can build wheels but are they as good as someone who has been doing them for years? Nope.
I had a guy come to us straight out of an ACT wheelbuilding course & i'm not sure what they tought him. He may aswell have built the wheel from spaghetti!

Spokes are expensive but then you have to take into account all the different buttings, lengths, colours etc & the shop can only buy them in 72's or 100's normally. They have to allow for a box of spokes to sit there for months before they are needed again.
As for labour, most shops will charge you £40-£50 for an hours workshop time/service, most wheels take 40mins on average so £20-£25 labour isn't too bad really. A lot of shops will even lose the labour if you buy the rim/hub/spokes from them.

They are there to make a living & stock all the pretty stuff you want to perv over. They have to pay for it some how. People need to support the LBS before its too late & they have gone, i'd love to see your Dell Laptop build an urgent wheel at 4pm the day before a big weekends riding!

J

DB spokes do stretch & over time have a memory so will remain at the stretched length. This means that getting the correct tension again is almost impossible.

Nonsense, I've rebuilt many wheels professionally in this way without problem.

Spokes are expensive but then you have to take into account all the different buttings, lengths, colours etc & the shop can only buy them in 72's or 100's normally. They have to allow for a box of spokes to sit there for months before they are needed again.

Although you could buy a box of 100 spokes at retail for less than the 68 quid that this guy is being charged, let alone trade.

People need to support the LBS before its too late & they have gone, i'd love to see your Dell Laptop build an urgent wheel at 4pm the day before a big weekends riding!

That's great in theory, but in practice 9 times out of 10, the quickest way to get any bike stuff more complicated than an inner tube is to buy it online off Chain Reaction. Especially for people who work, so often can't get to bike shops when they're open.

Joe