When you look at the TT bikes that the pros use, and also many super fast amateurs, they almost always have a disc wheel on the back (track riders often have them on the front too, but that’s not suitable for the road and isn’t CTT legal). Sadly, disc wheels are super expensive – new they are easily more than the total amount I have (ever!) spent on this bike, and even secondhand they cost more than this bike is probably worth.
However, there are companies out there that sell disc covers that you can attach to a normal wheel (and videos of how you can make your own). I was considering trying to make my own, but getting hold of the right sort of abs plastic was a bit of a hassle, and it wasn’t very much more expensive to buy a basic kit on ebay. The one I bought is from vitesse cycles, and it cost Ā£29 including postage – now you see why making my own wasn’t so appealing! You tell them the size of your rims, and they provide discs – you do the rest. I believe you can get pre-made ones for specific wheels, but they don’t list any fixed hubs.
The package came with 2 discs of very thin black plastic, a 4 page instruction booklet, some valve hole covers, a DVD instructional video, some zip ties and some special attachment devices. Also shown is my rear wheel before I added the cover – it’s a Roval 45 on a Halo track hub.
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The process is basically – cut your centre holes (it’s thin – you can use dividers), cut out the valve hole (same way), cut a slot so that it can overlap (scissors), and pop the disc onto your wheel. I don’t have a computer with a DVD drive, so I just ignored the instructional video and did what I’ve seen others do on youtube! Once you are happy that it fits and the overlap works, you can flip the wheel over and tape the first disc onto the spokes from the inside of the wheel. This is actually quite easy if you support the disc (helps when you have a fixie and you can just pop the sprocket on to hold the centre in place). Then, you tape the join line and round the rim, and you have one side of a wheel! Repeat on the other side, and you have a wheel that looks to the air like a disc wheel, while costing a tiny amount.
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The observant among you may have noticed that taping the second side to the spokes is likely to be impossible, because there’s already a cover in place on the other side! I figured it would probably be OK clamped in the middle and taped around the edge, and it might have been the case if I hadn’t taped the edge before clamping it with the sprocket! When I put the sprocket on, I realised that the cover wasn’t seated properly over the hub, and this meant that after I had done up the sprocket it had an annoying bulge in it. š¦ Sadly I couldn’t get a photo to demonstrate the bulge, so you’ll just have to take my word for it! I need to re-tape the rim/cover join, but I have run out of tape, so I’ll have to do that another day. It looks OK from a few meters though, and the fist side I did actually looks pretty decent up close too. Hopefully the wind sees it that way too!
When I have re-taped the second side I’ll slot it into my bike and see how it goes. Stay tuned!
Fixed TTing 