If you ask what the world's first complete wheelset was, there are actually several before 1996,
but in terms of selling thousands of pairs of wheels with the same specifications worldwide,
the Mavic Helium that debuted in 1996 could be called
the first complete wheelset.
It was also the initial catalyst that destroyed the very concept of
"wheels are something shops build" in just a few short years.
This Helium has a front that's 26H — an extremely unusual spoke hole count.
The rear is 28H, and uses a standard rim compatible with hand-built wheel materials,
so it's also possible to source two rear rims and pair them with a standard 28H hub to build wheels.
So a Helium built with those specs came in today,
and both sides had the spokes soldered at the spoke crossings.
↑Pretty rough work.
I rebuilt it with a PMP hub.
I'm doing the spoke soldering only on the drive-side.
The goal is to reduce spoke deflection, but on the freewheel side
whether you solder or not makes almost no difference in deflection,
and since the non-freewheel side naturally has greater deflection anyway,
soldering only that side seems to correct the left-right balance.
The PMP hub has quite pronounced high/low flanges
so the left-side spoke tension won't be that slack.
Besides that, there's another method I'm using to reduce spoke tension imbalance between sides,
but I'll get into that another time since this is getting long.
but in terms of selling thousands of pairs of wheels with the same specifications worldwide,
the Mavic Helium that debuted in 1996 could be called
the first complete wheelset.
It was also the initial catalyst that destroyed the very concept of
"wheels are something shops build" in just a few short years.
This Helium has a front that's 26H — an extremely unusual spoke hole count.
The rear is 28H, and uses a standard rim compatible with hand-built wheel materials,
so it's also possible to source two rear rims and pair them with a standard 28H hub to build wheels.
So a Helium built with those specs came in today,
and both sides had the spokes soldered at the spoke crossings.
↑Pretty rough work.
I rebuilt it with a PMP hub.
I'm doing the spoke soldering only on the drive-side.
The goal is to reduce spoke deflection, but on the freewheel side
whether you solder or not makes almost no difference in deflection,
and since the non-freewheel side naturally has greater deflection anyway,
soldering only that side seems to correct the left-right balance.
The PMP hub has quite pronounced high/low flanges
so the left-side spoke tension won't be that slack.
Besides that, there's another method I'm using to reduce spoke tension imbalance between sides,
but I'll get into that another time since this is getting long.