It's a bling fest!!!

..even MORE bling!

Check these puppies out. Mavic 717's on Hope Pro 2 Hubs. How fantastically will these go with the head set & stem (see previous posts).

For those mountain bikers out there, we all know you can hear a hope hub coming from a mile away with that lovely free-wheeling "zzzzzzzzzz" sound. Now, you will know that it is me coming. Mwhahahaha!

As with the stem and head set, bling is bling. But this bling is also the bomb. Hope. Top shelf brand, 'nuff said.

Now, the wheels fall into the same category as the forks of "hope"lessly difficult item to get (pun intended - put in inverted commas just to accentuate where in that sentence the pun occurred - the author of course assuming his reading population is just as slow as himself). Wheel sets actually quite often come on sale, but it was finding the ones I wanted that was hard. You see, I was already targeting the gold components, and stuff made by Hub, rarely comes on sale. Additionally, I specifically wanted the 15mm through axle and most of what I was finding was non-convertible 9mm or 20mm.  A learnered friend advised me the hope hubs are cross-compatible - giving me the option of changing in future. The Rims were a little easier to decide on, just as long as they were light-ish and strong was acceptable.

Anyhooo, after much searching I eventually came across these babies at a very respectable price. I was also being careful to contain costs with the wheels for another little future idea is brewing.... More on that later.

Now, purchasing these wheels could in some ways be construed as cheating. If I was really building this bike from scratch, I would have purchased all the components that make up the wheels (mainly the hubs, the spokes and the rims) separately. But as anyone that has tried it can attest to, building wheels is an absolute bitch of a job and one that is usually only perfected after repeated attempts). Additionally, most of the MTB sites offer custom or 'pre-built" wheel configurations - since you are purchasing all the bits, they throw in the build as well.

Here ends this blog entry. May I re-direct your attention to the photo's of the wheels and bask in their glorious glory.

Progressive costs:
Actual: $3078.62
Estimated: $3067.39
If RRP: $5264.6

Ride on...
Justin.