Rohloff and rims on a Tandem

Colin Stanley · Post by **Colin Stanley** » 4 Feb 2008, 9:29pm

Also posted on the Tandem Club Discussion Board.
Just had our second spoke breakage on a 26in DT Swiss rim married to a Rohloff.
There was discussion in the Tandem Club some time ago about a rim from Rigida which might be a better proposition as it allowed better alignment of the spoke and nipple. Just looked on the Rigida and the St John Street Cycles websites and there is a double wall rim called the Andra 30 which can be offered with specially cut spoke drillings which they claim are optimised for high flange hubs like Rohloff. The spoke to nipple alignment with the DT Swiss rim is dreadful and I think this has caused the spokes to fail at their thread washout inside the nipple.
Can anyone shed any light on this, or has anyone got this Rigida/Rohloff combination and has it been successful?
Grateful for any help on this please.

Wildoo · Post by **Wildoo** » 5 Feb 2008, 1:54pm

We are the UK agents for Rigida and can advise the following:

The Andra 30 is a special rim developed by Rigida with extra material on the inside of the rim. This enables the rim to be drilled to the same angle that the spoke enters the rim so that when the wheel is tensioned the spoke line remains straight and does not bend and weaken the spoke. This also ensures that the nipple will not pull through the rim and cause premature rim failure.

When St John Street Cycles saw this rim they immeadiately saw it as the solution for the acute spoke angles that lacing Rohloff hubs into 26" MTB rims causes. St John Street and Rigida co-operated to develop a version of Andra 30 drilled especialy for Rohloff.

At present this rim is only available in the UK from St John Street so please contact them. I would suggest that you ask them to build the wheel for you as their wheelbuilder has the experience to ensure that it is correctly built.

If you have any other questions please contact me: andy@wildoo.co.uk

Colin Stanley · Post by **Colin Stanley** » 13 Feb 2008, 9:20am

New Rigida Andra 30 rim and spokes arriving any day now. Although I haven’t built a wheel for about 45 years, I’m quite happy to lace it up and get the rim roughly true. However, I haven’t got a spoke tension measuring tool or truing jig (could use an old pair of forks for the latter). According to Rohloff, final spoke tension needs to be 1206N.
For the cost of the tool, the LBS could build the wheel for me, but on the other hand, if I had the tool, I could maintain all my wheels.

Any advice on this dilemma?

PW · Post by PW » 14 Feb 2008, 12:39pm

Totally unnecessary. As the wheel is tensioned up, test the tension by tapping mid spoke with a screwdriver & listen to the tone. When it's similar to a wheel you know to be good then stress relieve the spokes by grasping parallel pairs and giving them a good tweak (Gardening gloves recommended!) If the rim stays true then tighten all spokes another 1/4 turn & do it again. When the rim goes out of true in 4 smooth waves back everything off 1/4 turn, true it up & you've finished. (That's the method recommended by Brandt in "The Bicycle Wheel" which I've been using for years and it works).