[rob crompton]

For reference for anyone thinking of new wheels for a mini:

– original hubs (marked ‘Made in England’ at the front; Sturmey Archer FW at the back)
– Alesa 28h 305 rims ( fairly basic: single wall, no eyelets ) from “bankrupt bike parts” on ebay (listed already built into wheels, but they supplied me some separately when I asked) (I measured 297mm ERD)
– spokes: 140mm front, 132mm rear from SJS cycles
– Kenda KWest 32-305 tyres (from E-BikesDirect on ebay)
– Schwalbe AV2 inner tubes
– Velox medium 16mm rim tape (1 roll is enough for both if you don’t overlap too much)

I recently bought a Super 4 for my daughter in quite good working order, but I didn’t want to trust her to John Bull brake blocks on chrome rims, so I wanted to switch to alloy rims. It’s not that easy to find 298 rims, and the only tyres seemed to be around 50psi max, so when I saw these tyres 305 seemed a better way to go.
I thought the 32-305 might be slightly smaller than the original Dunlops, which i think are about 37-298, but they are slightly larger and rubbed the top of the front mudguard stay nut a little. Straightening the stays and shuffling a washer fixed this.

Braking is better but I’d like it to be better still. I put Tektro R559s on my Standard but they wouldn’t fit on the rear of this mini; the cable is to the wrong side (there is a little cutout for the brake caliper on the drive side) and the space behind the suspension block is very tight.

Does anyone know of dual pivot brakes that would fit?

regards,
Rob.

[david james]

don’t know of the brakes to fit but what i will say is i have an old bickerton (the one that looks like it’s made of part of an aircraft wing) it has a 14 inch wheel at the front and a 16 inch at the back and in the rain the original chrome wheels perform fine as i think they only need one revolution to wipe off the water then they bite which on a 14 inch wheel is virtually nill .bear in mind alloy rims are sacrificial and wear out , a bit like modern disc brakes and on a small wheel will wear out sooner

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