So,the rims have worn out on the girlfriend’s commuter bike, a Genesis Day One. It’s a single speed CX bike, but running 25mm tyres and unlikely to ever run anything much wider. The problems are:

1) It’s hard to find 700c, 135mm single speed rear wheels.
2) The missus doesn’t want to spend much money (I’d say around £80 for the pair).

It would be great to be able to replace the wheel without buying new rims and rebuilding because I’m currently time-poor as well as cash-poor, but may well end up getting some Open Sports and going down that route anyway.

All help gratefully accepted! 🙂

Cheap as chips, prob 120mm spacing but as they’re bolt on would it not be possible to space out the rear with a couple of bolts?

edit – doh just realised chainline may get messy, hmm, can you source a similar rim (atleast same ERD), for the rear? Fairly (!) quick change around then. Pretty sure I did my old commuter rim swap in an evening and I’m slow at building wheels.

hubs on those are decent enough so sad to say you should be buying some open sports! £80 isn’t going to buy much wheels wise

Got my LBS to build the Day One hubs onto a welded touring rim (can’t remember what they are off hand…look nice though). I reckon you could get Open Sport’s built onto the hubs with decent spokes for around the £100 quid mark. Worthwhile, because the hubs are ok, and changing the cartridge bearings is easy.

This is good news, I had not realised that the hubs were so good. Will pass the info on and look into replacing the rims…

the hubs are ok, and changing the cartridge bearings is easy.

How is this done? Is there a good website or youtube video out there?

I wouldn’t trust myself to drift the bearing out, but it’s a simple job for an LBS. Bearings in mine are fine after 4 years (ok rears probably need changing soon) but if the bike is primarily used as a road commuter they should last for ages anyway.

Is there a good website or youtube video out there?

depends on hub but basically,
remove end caps/locknuts,
knock axle out (one bearing will come out aswell)
drift other bearing out.
Hammer/press new bearing into hub with appropriately sized socket (or similar, only exert force on the outside bearing race),
insert axle*,
hammer/press other bearing in,
replace locknuts/endcaps.

*do not forget this step and have to knock out one of the new bearings again to fit the axle, rookie mistake 🙄

Excellent, thanks for the advice! Sooo, does anybody know the ERD for Mavic Open Sport rims? 🙂

606 quoted, 608 is what I measured when I did this the other week. (Same bike, same rims)

I had to buy some new hubs too as I’d stripped a thread on the original hubs, and as you say 135mm single speeds are hard to come by. In fact the only ones I could find were Surly’s

Rims, about 50 quid.
Spokes and nipples about 45 quid
so you’re going to be over budget.

Can you buy a set of rims the same as it already has on it and do a rim swap?

Had a look, they’re some kind of Alex OEM jobby. Gonna try the spokes with Open Sports and see if they fit…

Just buy a cheap set of 29er/Touring wheels.