Get Your Cyclocross Wheels from Ben's Cycle Wheelbuilder

The biggest upgrade you can make to your cyclocross bike is the wheelset.

Ben's Cycle is one of the few bike shops to offer a wheel builder service in the store and on our website.  You can select any hub - White Industries, Shimano, Chris King, and others, pair it up with exactly the rim you want, and we'll build the wheels for free.

One of the Milwaukee Bicycle Company Racing Team members recently build up a one set of wheels with White Industry hubs and Velocity Major Tom tubular rims, and another with the same hubs and a HED Belgium rim in order to test out the durability of each rim.

Rear wheels built with White hubs, one with Major Tom rim, the other with HED Belgium

By ordering from us, you get exactly what you want, from number of spoke holes to color. And the price is usually a lot less than a pre-built set of wheels. 

Add to that our pre-season tire gluing special for $55 a wheelset, less if you buy the tires from us, and you're going to be able to get a lot more wheel than you thought possible. 

Of course, you can still buy pre-built Shimano, SRAM, Hed, Zipp, and other wheelsets at Ben's Cycle with tubular and clincher rims, disc and non-disc hubs. If there's something you're looking for, we can get what you need.

Cyclocross Tubular Gluing Super Special from Ben's Cycle

While tubulars are without a doubt the best way to go in cyclocross, gluing them can be a messy and time-consuming challenge.

That's why you should let the experienced technicians at Ben's Cycle glue them for you.

photo by Craig Daemmrich

We're running a pre-season special on tubular gluing: 

• We'll glue up a set of tubulars on your wheels for $55. This includes one layer of CX Tape, and at least six layers of glue. 

• Want more? Buy a set of tubulars from us such as the awesome Challenge Chicane, and we'll drop the gluing price to $25.

• Even more? Build a set of wheels with our wheelbuilder program, buy the tubulars from us, and get the gluing done for FREE!

CX Tape: Belgian Tape for Cross Tubulars

The only time our Milwaukee Bicycle Company racer Paul has ever had a broken bone in a cyclocross race (collar bone) was because of a rolled tubular tire.

boyauxbandit.blogspot.com

boyauxbandit.blogspot.com

While tubulars are by far your best option for racing cross, gluing the tires can be a challenge to get just right so that the tire doesn't roll off the rim at the wrong moment.


Ben's is running a special on tubular gluing right now to help you get ready for the cross season. Gluing tubulars is messy and best left to professionals to make sure the tire stays on the rim.

The key product in the gluing process is CX Tape, a double-sided tape that is wrapped around the rim to ensure the tire never rolls off. 

We have a love/hate relationship with CX Tape: if we ever need to change tires, the tape is a beast to remove. But that's the exact reason it works so well. In two years of racing wheels glued with CX Tape, we've never rolled a tire. The stuff works. 

Ben's stocks CX Tape in two-tire rolls for $7.99, available in the store or online.  

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It's the closest thing to a guarantee that your tubulars will never roll off the rim when you're flying around a corner. 

Pre-Season Cross Tire and Glue Special at Ben's Cycle

Ben's Cycle has quickly become the bike store cyclocross racers trust to find bikes, wheels, tires, and good service. From our race team to our Milwaukee Bicycle Company Mettle cyclocross race bike, from our top-notch service department to our cyclocross clinics, from our Specialized Crux bikes to our large stock of parts, wheels, tires, and accessories, we have what you need to start racing, or make you faster.

(Feedback Sports)

We'll give you three good reasons to stop in today and see what we have to offer:

Base glue (csmagazine)

1. We're running a pre-season special on tire gluing for  tubular wheels. While tubular wheels are far superior to any other for cyclocross since we can run them at such a low tire pressure, they are messy and annoying to glue. 

Adding tape to glue. (cxmagazine)

At Ben's, drop your wheels and tires off, and we'll glue them for $55 a set! Our highly-trained mechanics use CX Tape plus at least three layers of glue to assure that your tires won't roll off in tight corners. Our shop racers have their tires glued on here! And those race team members who glue their own wheels use CX Tape.

2. We are getting new stock of rims and hubs ready for cyclocross. And at Ben's, you can select your own choice of hubs and rims, and we'll build them for free. It's usually cheaper to have us build a set of wheels for you than buying pre-built wheels. And then you have exactly the wheels you want.

White Industries CX-11 hubs

Aileron clincher rim

We have White Industry, Shimano, Chris King, and DT Swiss hubs with Velocity, HED, Enve, Stans, H Plus, and Pacenti rims. These come in disc and non-disc hubs with tubular and clincher versions. 

For example, Velocity just came out with the Aileron, a wider clincher rim designed for cyclocross. And Shimano and White both have cyclocross-specific hubs available. 

If a hub or rim doesn't show up in inventory, call us and we'll get it ordered!

3. We're getting our cyclocross tires in stock, both clincher and tubular. We have tires from Clement, Challenge, Vittoria, Stans, Kenda, and other manufacturers. 

The hot tire this year seems to be the Challenge Chicane, a set of which are being glued to a Milwaukee Bicycle Company Race Team member today. The Chicane is a file tread, which allows the tire to go faster in dry and grassy conditions, but it has the side tread from the Challenge Limus, the mud tire. That fat tread on the side allows for tighter, more confident cornering.

Challenge Chicane. (cycle.tyresdirect.fr)

Stop at the shop or go online for more reasons to make Ben's Cycle your source for everything cyclocross this fall. 

And stay tuned for more reasons to shop for everything cyclocross at Ben's Cycle.

Cyclocross Sale!

The first races of the 2013-14 cyclocross season are finished, and Ben's Cycles is ready to meet all of your cross needs for the rest of the season and beyond.

1. We are running a 25 percent sale on all cross products, including bikes, tires, wheels, and clothing in current stock!

2. We stock Specialized and Focus cross bikes, including bikes equipped with disc brakes. Plus we can order bikes and get them quickly. We even have a few pre-ridden Focus bikes!

3. We have a pretty big stock of cross tubulars! Challenge, Clement, and Vittoria!

4. We have cross wheels or 29er wheels ready for your cross ride.

5. We can build wheels exactly to your specs. If you want disc wheels, clinchers, we can build up wheels with pretty much whatever parts you choose.

6. Tubulars a little light on glue? Haven't reglued them for a few years? Bring them into the shop, and we'll glue your tubulars just right for cross racing!

7. We have a $40 offer for cleaning, re-lubing, and maintaining your cross bike after a muddy, dirty weekend. Bring it in on Monday, we'll wash it, re-lube everything, remove the bottom bracket and re-lube that as well, even adjust your brakes.

Ben's recently built up a carbon Specialized disc Crux for me. We had several sets of wheels built with Shimano hubs, Avid discs, and Velocity rims for a lot less than buying them somewhere else! Come see my rigs and wheels at the Trek CXC races this weekend in Waterloo and see some great pro and amateur cross at the Trek factory.

Cyclocross Gear: Wheels and Tires

Cyclocross Gear: Wheels and Tires

The easiest upgrade for any cyclocross bike is wheels. A good set of cross wheels can make a huge difference in how your ride, how well you corner, and how fast you are over the flats.

And by far the best upgrade is a set of tubular wheels. Here is a short video about the difference between clincher and tubular wheels.

For cyclocross, tubulars are the best option out there. Despite the messiness and hassle of gluing the tires onto the rims and the cost of tubular tires, tubulars allow you to run really low tire pressures (usually between 22-28 psi) that allow the tires to literally conform to the ground. You can corner faster, ride through mud, sand, and other materials more solidly and confidently, and not worry about pinch flats.

A third option that racers are exploring are tubeless tires. These are clinchers but instead of a tube inside, the tires are filled with sealant that prevents flats. You still can’t ride pressures as low as tubulars, but if you just have clinchers wheels and they are compatible with tubeless tires, it is a close second for tire options.

Wheelsets

Ben’s has numerous options for wheelsets, including Reynolds, Easton, Hed, and Shimano. In addition, we can build up wheels for you so you can choose sweet hubs from Chris King, DT Swiss, or White Industries and pair them with Velocity rims. I paired Velocity Major Tom tubular rims with Shimano disc hubs to create some bomb-proof solid wheels for this season!

Finally, if you are running discs this year, you can also choose wheelsets that are set up for 29er mountain bikes! Just add cross tires and you’re ready to go.

Tires

Cross tires have generally three tread patterns: light or file tread for grassy courses where you don’t need much traction; mid for pretty much everything; and heavy or deep tread for muddy races. Again, the advantage of clincher or tubeless set ups is that you can one wheelset and several sets of tires that you can interchange as the conditions dictate.

With tubulars, racers usually needs several sets of wheels with tires mounted for different conditions. I have wheelsets for file treads, mud tires, and mids.

Clincher: We currently stock clincher tires from Hutchinson, Kenda, Michelin, Panaracer, and Vittoria. We can also get Clement tires. Each of the tires is 31-34 mm wide. If you race UCI races, your tires must be 33mm or less.

Tubular: We currently have Vittoria, Clement, and Challenge tubulars in stock. Last year, we started selling the Clement LAS and PDX tires, which became one of our most popular items. I rode these all of last year and loved them. The PDX is a mid knob tire, so I often ran the PDX in front and LAS file tread in the rear for optimal speed.

Ben’s also can glue up your tires for you if you purchase tubulars. Gluing cross tires is a practiced art. If you haven’t done it before or just glued road tires, please make sure you talk to a seasoned tire gluer for cross. Cross tubulars are stressed often in corners and if you have a poorly glued tire, it can easily roll off, dumping you to the ground.