Reinventing the handbuilt wheel

Just outside Arundel at the foot of the South Downs on a tiny industrial estate the handbuilt wheel is making a comeback

- Simon Smythe

Strada is one of a new generation of small, independent companies that are bringing back hand-built wheels. But these wheels are not built with dusty old Mavic Open Pro rims that might have been hanging up in a bike shop stock room for three decades.

Strada offers 21st-century carbon rims from a range of brands including Enve and DT Swiss, plus its own carbon rims in disc or rim brake versions with a choice of depths. Customers also choose the hubs and the spokes from the likes of Chris King, Tactic, DT Swiss and Sapim to make sure the wheels they're buying are right for their weight, riding style, cycling discipline and budget - and the wheels are all built by hand at Strada's workshop.

"Twenty years ago I was working in a bike shop," says Strada owner Darren Rawlings. "We sold factory-built wheelsets from Mavic, Fulcrum, Shimano and then more mass-produced carbon brands like Zipp. The biggest problem we used to face was availability of parts."

Follow-up frustration

"You could guarantee that by the end of summer a customer had damaged a wheel, broken a spoke, perhaps had a problem with the hub. That used to frustrate us because it was our responsibility to look after the customer with the product we had sold them. But it was also really simple to sell someone a set of wheels off the shelf." 

Rawlings remembers having a choice to make. "I was told, you can't charge someone the same amount to build a wheel the same as you would to do a full service on their bike. One has got to go. So that's why I ended up leaving the shop."

Rawlings was also on the GB trials team for three years. "So I've been around my fair share of broken wheels. In my last season I started to build a lot of wheels and always had it in my mind that I'd do it one day."