Custom Wheels

Worthington Cycles can custom build a perfect set of hand built wheels for you. We can build ultralight road wheels, aero wheels, bomb-proof training wheels and Mountain wheels of any just about any type. We do all of our building by hand and select each component to match your needs. Built with your choice of top of the line hubs, rims and spokes all in a hand built custom design tailored just to your needs that are better than most of the factory sets now available.

• Rim Choices: DT, Velocity, Stans NoTubes, HED, Kinlin, Easton etc...
• Hubs: Shimano, DT, Chris King, Bitex, etc...
• Spokes: DT, Wheelsmith, Sapim
• 700C, 29er, 26" MTN, 650B, Tandem, Single Speed, Gravel Wheels 
• Tubeless Road Wheels
• Disc Brake Wheels for Mountain, Cross or Road
• Specialty Lacing Patterns Available

An example of one our lightest weight road wheels we recently built use the original Stan's Notubes Alpha 340 rims in 24H Rear & 18H front drilling.  
This set is laced with DT Revolution spokes on the rear laced 2 cross, and DT aerolite spokes on the front laced radial with silver alloy nipples. I used a Dura-Ace 9000 rear hub for durability and a Bitex front hub. The finished wheels were outfitted with a set of 25c Fusion 5 Galactik Hutchinson tubeless tires. The wheels (without tires) weigh in at right around 1300 grams.

Worthington Cantilever Brakes

Perfect for Cyclo-Cross, or any retro project, we still have our powerful cantilever brakes available for sale. This brake was originally made back in 1992 and was designed to be a powerful cantilever brake for Cyclo-Cross, mountain biking, and tandems. 

This Worthington Cycles brake design was initially licensed to Nicol Trading International to be manufactured and sold under the Worthington Cantilever Brake name by NTi. Worthington Cycles is now the only source for the Worthington Cantilever Brake.

The arms are CNC Machined from solid 2024-T3 billet making this brake one of the stiffest brakes available. We also use a close tolerance bronze bushing for reduced brake chatter and long life. It is designed as a low profile brake and sits close to the fork tubes or seat stays to prevent snags and improve braking power. Modulation can easily be tuned by changing the length of the straddle cable yoke angle and the position of the pads. These brakes are available in 3 anodized colors.

• Made in the USA
• Colors: Blue, Silver, Red or black
• Weight: 170 grams with pads (front or rear)
• Pricing: $99.00 per wheel

SELECT COLOR: Black Blue Silver

Lightweight Steel Road Frames - Under 3 Pounds!

Custom Lightweight Steel Road Frames

We can build very lightweight custom steel road frames using the oversize thin wall steel tubing - building a frame that weighs just under three pounds. 

While this isn't in the same weight class as an ultralight carbon frame, it has the special feel of steel that many demand while still being reasonably light and very strong. The weight penalty of a few ounces, or a few hundred grams, is made up for by the smooth ride and amazing feel that only a lightweight steel frame can provide.

The frame pictured above is a 54 CM frame and weighs 2.9 lbs. This is an amazing frame that feels so nice on the road, and at just under 3 pounds is a perfect alternative to aluminum, carbon, or titanium frames. We feel that the long fatigue life steel typically exhibits will make this frame a long lasting lightweight winner, and since it is available as a custom frame from Worthington Cycles it can be designed to fit your needs and requirements perfectly.

Worthington Irie™ Cantilever Brakes

We have built and sold two different cantilever brake designs over the years. Our first brake design was the Irie Brake­, which is a pulley assisted brake, and was one of the first long arm cantilever brakes sold in the late 1980's. 

This was just before the  Shimano^® V-Brake style brake became the standard rim brake used on most mountain bikes - and long before disc brakes were used on most mountain bikes. 

The Irie Brake was very powerful, but it did not perform very well with the standard cantilever type brake levers available at the time. Since a standard cantilever lever pulled less cable than the Irie brakes need to work optimally there was often too little pad clearance at the rim and so adjusting and maintaining these types of long arm brakes was time consuming and tricky to keep working well. With the advent of V-Brakes, and the corresponding V-Brake specific brake levers, that had more cable travel, the Irie Brake worked even better.

These were CNC Machined from 6061-T6 solid billet and then the brake arms were hand polished and black anodized. The pulleys are machined from 7075-T6 and use a sealed cartridge bearing so that the pulleys provide long lasting and super smooth braking action.
• Color: Black
• Stainless Mounting Bolts
• Weight: 190 grams with pads
• Pricing: $99.00 per wheel - Front or Rear

New Frame Shop

Well it took a bit longer than I thought it would, but the new shop is almost complete. All the machines and tools are pretty much up and running - I just need to do a little bench reinforcement and add some more hooks and storage. Here is a pic of how things look. This is by far the best shop I have had. It rivals my third shop built in 1988. It is a far cry from the first shop, which was outside under a deck, from when I first started building frames back in high school. I haven't had a complete shop in just over 2 years. During that time I had just a temporary shop for basic maintenance and repairs. 

Now I need to get back to the CAD program and work up some new designs. I am thinking about a new hardtail mountain bike, possibly a 29er front end with a 650b rear wheel that would hearken back to my original mountain bikes from the 1980's which all had 24" rear wheels with 26" front wheels. I also would like to build up a new road frame with PF-30 BB, and an over-sized integrated headtube. I think I will stick with S3 tubing as I love the feel of frames made with that tubeset.

Interbike 2011

Interbike 2011 is a wrap - Yet another year at Interbike (my 27th year!). This year seemed like more of an evolution year with very little in the way of major announcements. I think part of this is the way many companies are revealing their products well in advance of Interbike, even as early as events like Sea Otter.

This year power meters are still part of the buzz. Garmin, Look, Brim Brothers, Rotor etc...all had new or updated versions of their power meters on display. However, none are shipping. I am still waiting for the rumored Shimano integration of power into the Di2 system. I wonder when that will happen.

Another trend that continues is the expansion of tubeless road wheel options. Easton, American Classic, Fulcrum, and Notubes, among others, showed several new wheelsets. The American Classic wheels seem to offer a nice wide wheel, with a interesting bead hook and they are very light weight (1179g Aluminum, 1108g mag). Prices are a bit high in my opinion and it will be hard to justify $1600 for the Magnesium wheels over say a HED or ZIPP carbon clincher. I would love to see American Classic offer just the 310gr Aluminum Clincher Rims for custom wheel builds, but based on their history of not offering their rims separately I don't see this happening. The Easton EA90RT wheels also are a great wheel for the price $850 and would be a good choice - even though they are much heavier at 1550g.

Unfortunately there is little in the way of new Tubeless Road tires - Hutchinson still has their 3 products; Fusion3, Intesive, and Atom, while Maxxis had their Padrone tires that are a bit expensive at $120 retail. Still waiting for more alternative tubeless tires and some lower cost options.

Some other trends included more disc brakes for cyclo-cross, hydraulic shifting, BB30, PF30, and BB86EVO on more bikes, official introduction of Ultegra Di2, and tons of wider and deeper carbon wheel options.

All in all it was a good show, but with less and less product introductions.

2011 New Years Resolutions

I was thinking about everyone and their "Resolutions" for the new year and I thought I would mention a few things cyclists in 2011 should try if they haven't yet.

Tubeless Road Tires: I personally have been running tubeless road tires since 2009 and have yet to flat while running them - knock on wood!. The ride is just better, and with a splash of sealant from NoTubes or CaffeLatex you have even better insurance against flats.

Regular Spoke Nipples: With the rash of carbon wheels, aero wheels, and other lightweight wheels now on the market I suggest that you pick a set of wheels with standard components - especially normal nipples. If you are hard on you components having an easily serviced wheel makes life much easier. Plus, when you convert normal clincher rim to to tubeless it is a pain to do simple repairs and truing if you don't have regular spoke nipples. I suggest a good set of custom wheels from your favorite local builder - We can help with that also.

Lower your tire pressure: Weather you are running road tires, cyclo-cross, or mountain tires, try running them at a lower pressure for a week or two to see if you see a difference. I see people running much higher pressures than they should in many cases.

Enjoy riding your bike in 2011

NoTubes Alpha 340 Rim & Wheels

After several months of waiting, we were able to get a set of the new Stans NoTubes Alpha 340 road wheels, as well as some rims to build up some custom wheelsets.

These new rims are some of the lightest 700c aluminum clincher rims available and they offer the added benefit of the patented NoTubes BST (Bead Socket Technology) in a road/cyclocross rim. The idea behind the BST is that it increases the air volume of the tire and offers an different bead lock compared with a traditional rim. This lower bead area makes the tire have a wider profile.

Take the example of the Hutchinson Atom Tubeless road tire - on a standard 19mm wide clincher rim this tire measures only 19.5mm wide, which is pretty narrow and limits the use for anything but a front tire or for fly-wieght riders. However, on the Stans rim the same tire measure 22.9mm wide, and it feels very nice when riding it.

The star of this review has to be the ZTR Alpha 340 Pro Wheelset - these wheels weigh in at an incredible 1200g - our set weighed 1238g with rim tape and valve stems installed. This is one of the lightest production clincher wheelsets available. They do have a rider weight limit of 175 pounds, and I think for anyone close to that weight, or someone with incredible amounts of raw power, these wheels might be a little flexy. The 18 hole front and 24 hole triplet laced rear makes for very smooth, fast accelerating wheels. I noticed immediately that these wheels spun up quickly and were easier to follow accelerations in a pack or race situation. They have a decent aero profile but certainly are not to be confused as aero wheels. For someone who doesn't want to spend the money on carbon wheels or tubular tires (which have additional hassles), these wheels offer a great alternative that is light, support tubeless tires easily, and offer the increased air volume to make the ride amazing thanks to BST. All in all this a great set of wheels. If you need stronger or stiffer wheels the rims are available to be custom built for your needs - 32 hole, 28 hole, 24 hole etc...

Interbike 2010

Interbike 2010 is a wrap - spent 2 days walking the Sands show floor in Las Vegas looking for new interesting items. A few things caught my eye - I will be updating this as I go through my notes.

The new KS Suspension height adjustable seatpost seems like a nice product. The best part is that it is available in a 27.2mm size which is perfect for the steel frames we build at Worthington Cycles. This will have 100mm of travel, optional remote release lever and will weigh a respectable 530g.



NoTubes showed their complete line of Alpha 340 Road Wheels - the 1200g Pro wheels are very nice and are a perfect, lightweight top of the line wheel-set. However, the star is probably the $615 retail ZTR Alpha 340 Comp wheel-set that weighs 1430g. NoTubes also showed their updated valve stems, hubs, and valve extenders.

Big news at Interbike once again is pedal based power meters - with two "new" systems marketed, but as of yet still unavailable! First is the all new Polar/Look system the seems promising, but is still pretty expensive at ~$2500.00. Second is there is last years Interbike show stopper, Metrigear, which has been bought by Garmin and is still in development...I this more Vaporware???

SRAM had new versions of their S30 AL road wheels on display. We had some trouble with the 2010 models due to faulty Sapim spokes, plus some problems with the bearing preload having to be set correctly each time a wheel was removed. Changes for 2011 look to remedy this by putting a set screw on the bearing preload setting, and hopefully better spokes (from Sapim still?) for next year. The S30 AL wheel is a great low end aero wheel-set for budget conscious buyers.

And in the completely crazy realm there was the much hyped Fairwheel Bikes 6lb road bike on display - with the worlds lightest wheelset (~500g) pretty impressive and only $45,000.00, though it wasn't for sale!

TRP was showing their updated CX-9 "mini v-brake" for cyclo-cross. We built custom V-Brakes like this for our Cyclo-Cross bikes many years ago so we think this is a good option. It is kind of nice to see a large company embrace this style of braking. Using a mini v-brake on a cross bike feels like using disc brakes on a mountain bike...very powerful, but with great modulation, and lever feedback, plus, the added advantage of no front fork shudder and no brake fade under heavy braking.

Maxxis was finally showing their road tubeless tire design.

Not really new, but still one of the best fitting tools I have seen is the SICI X/Y Fitting tool. This tool allows for easy transfer of bike fit from one bike to another and will make custom bike fitting even easier. .

Shop Moving

We are in the process of moving our frame building and machine shop - our new shop space won't be ready until next year some time, so in the meantime we are in temporary space just around the corner. I will be building out the temporary shop over the next few weeks.

Our office address and contact information is still the same - just the shop is in limbo now...