Berd polymer spokes

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LeDuke
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by LeDuke

Hopefully they can reduce the price, too.

$9/spoke is crazy.


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poynt
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by poynt

Kayrehn wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:56 am
They told me black ones will be out within half a year in march and yesterday they said the same thing too. Am quite disappointed because I have a wheel to rebuild and was waiting for that to come.

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I spoke to Charlie the other day and asked about colours, and he said they are piloting black and he could sell me some now. :D :D So my all black build can be even lighter now.

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Kayrehn
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by Kayrehn

That is a crazy coincidence, I just sent them a Facebook msg a few hours ago to check whether it'll really happen by this year end. Gonna hustle them for some!

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poynt
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by poynt

Klaster_1 wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 4:45 pm
I think Extralite CyberFront SPD-2 won't work with Berd PolyLight: the endcap rubs the spoke loop, which might potentially cause the failure of either. Then there's also a problem of how to put the endcap on with all spokes pulled through the flange.
in reference to the standard Hyper hubs, do you know if there might be any clearance issuses if you wanted or needed to change the bearings. Would it mean having to rebuild the wheels? Just that before I get my wheels built I was going to upgrade the bearings.

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Klaster_1
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by Klaster_1

poynt wrote:
Mon Oct 29, 2018 1:11 am
in reference to the standard Hyper hubs, do you know if there might be any clearance issuses if you wanted or needed to change the bearings. Would it mean having to rebuild the wheels? Just that before I get my wheels built I was going to upgrade the bearings.
You've probably seen the image, I think this is indeed a concern, but also probably a case where you don't know until you (or someone else) try. Maybe the spokes will flex enough to pull the bearing through. In worst case you can unthread spokes and pull them out a bit, but there's no info how Berds handle a rebuild.

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poynt
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by poynt

Klaster_1 wrote:
Mon Oct 29, 2018 3:46 am
poynt wrote:
Mon Oct 29, 2018 1:11 am
in reference to the standard Hyper hubs, do you know if there might be any clearance issuses if you wanted or needed to change the bearings. Would it mean having to rebuild the wheels? Just that before I get my wheels built I was going to upgrade the bearings.
You've probably seen the image, I think this is indeed a concern, but also probably a case where you don't know until you (or someone else) try. Maybe the spokes will flex enough to pull the bearing through. In worst case you can unthread spokes and pull them out a bit, but there's no info how Berds handle a rebuild.
agree even if it is only the radial side that the issue may occur, what about maintenance. If you can't get the bearing out, whats the chance of getting to the seals and re greasing.
Maybe down the line they may come up with a diffeent end/loop and way of terminating the spokes to alleiviate the room/access issuses

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Klaster_1
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by Klaster_1

poynt wrote:
Mon Oct 29, 2018 10:03 am
If you can't get the bearing out, whats the chance of getting to the seals and re greasing.
That should be possible, just remove the endcap and bearing rubber seal. The thin metal line you can see on my photo behind the endcap is the outer bearing race.

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MayhemSWE
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by MayhemSWE

Edit: Apparantly my eye for detail is not what I thought it was. When calculating the weight of the nipples I had divided the wrong way around, which obviously screwed up the whole comparison. Guess there is nothing stopping me from trying the PolyLight spokes now…

So I was going to order a set of spokes for a proper pair of climbing wheels. Then I started looking closer at the numbers provided by Berd's spoke calculator.

Approximate total weight is within 3 grams of the otherwise exact same wheelset with Aerolite spokes according to DT's calculator?! :noidea:

While I'd still like to give the PolyLight spokes, I'm having a tough time justifying the purchase at three times the price of Aerolites with no weight savings and probably much worse aerodynamics. The "100-200 g lighter" promised by Berd's homepage must be based a wheelset with 36 straight gauge spokes…
Last edited by MayhemSWE on Tue Apr 09, 2019 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

joejack951
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by joejack951

MayhemSWE wrote:
Tue Apr 09, 2019 4:38 pm
So I was going to order a set of spokes for a proper pair of climbing wheels. Then I started looking closer at the numbers provided by Berd's spoke calculator.

Approximate total weight is within 3 grams of the otherwise exact same wheelset with Aerolite spokes according to DT's calculator?! :noidea:

While I'd still like to give the PolyLight spokes, I'm having a tough time justifying the purchase at three times the price of Aerolites with no weight savings and probably much worse aerodynamics. The "100-200 g lighter" promised by Berd's homepage must be based a wheelset with 36 straight gauge spokes…
Check your nipple weight in the Berd calculator.

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ergott
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by ergott

You're using two different calculators and one doesn't list individual component weights.

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MayhemSWE
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by MayhemSWE

joejack951 wrote:
Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:24 pm
Check your nipple weight in the Berd calculator.
Doh! Now it makes sense. DT specifies the weight of Squorx nipples as 26 g for 64 pieces, so I must have divided 64/26 rather than the proper 26/64 and never caught the error because I haven't built enough wheels to have a feel for what is a reasonable nipple weight. Guess there is nothing stopping me from trying out the Berd PolyLight now… :shock:

joejack951
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by joejack951

ergott wrote:
Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:43 pm
You're using two different calculators and one doesn't list individual component weights.
A DT Squorx nipple weighs 0.41 grams, not 2.46 like he has in the Berd calculator. 2.05 grams x 52 spokes = 106.6 grams.

Mep
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by Mep

Did Berd ever get to offering an option in black? Don't seem to see that on their website.

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Klaster_1
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by Klaster_1

Mep wrote:
Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:16 am
Did Berd ever get to offering an option in black? Don't seem to see that on their website.
Yes, but wheels are/were to be built by Berd. And paint didn't seem to hold well, as far as I remember. Check out here for more discussion.

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MayhemSWE
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by MayhemSWE

Mep wrote:
Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:16 am
Did Berd ever get to offering an option in black? Don't seem to see that on their website.
I inquired about this when ordering spokes just the other week. Apparantly the black version they offered were pretty much just colored with a sharpie, so I decided to go with the original white.

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