Cane Creek Wheels – Fundamentally FastCane Creek fixed gear wheels are faster, period. Faster than what? Faster than everything else out there. The laws of physics make this an undisputable fact, and in North Carolina we obey the laws of physics.
Nipples At The Hub – The Crono Design
Cane Creek wheels are built on our patented Crono design, which flips the spoke around, placing all the spoke nipples at the hub and moving the spoke heads to the rim. This has the same effect as an ice skater pulling her arms in when she spins; she spins faster because her “rotational weight” is less with her arms in than with her arms extended. In white-labcoat taped-glasses jargon, this is called “decreasing the moment of inertia”.
Cane Creek takes advantage of this fundamental law of physics to bring you super low moment of inertia wheels, allowing you spin them up remarkably fast and leave those on lesser wheels in your wake. The lower rotational weight has the added benefit of letting you slow down faster (for the same reason it speeds up faster) and change directions more quickly (it rotates easier in every direction).
For track racing this means you’ll be able to dive through gaps that others wouldn’t consider. For fixed gear riding, you’ll have a fighting chance of dropping the anchor just in time to miss any obstacle in your path. Sounds good already, but we didn’t stop there. Instead of just moving the nipple to the hub, we even made our own nipple - a custom made aluminum nipple that is less than a third of the weight of a traditional spoke nipple. Light and fast... fundamentally. For mathematical proof, see: Moment of Inertia
Straight Spokes – The Straight Dope In addition to nipples at the hub, Cane Creek wheels also use straight spokes. This eliminates the weak point on traditional spokes, at the J-bend, and allows us to lace them to a tension that is up to 300 percent greater than that of a conventional spoked wheel. In terms of performance, the high tension straight spokes make the wheels feel snappy, track perfectly through corners and accelerate out of them instantly with no "wind-up". Cane Creek wheels put an end to the J-bend.
Hubs – Sophisticated Simplicity Rear Hubs – Cane Creek rear hubs are distilled down to the very essence of functionality while being marvels of precision CNC’ed aluminum beauty. Wide-set Dual Torque Transfer Flanges, specifically optimized for Fixed Gear and Single Speed riding, direct spoke loads efficiently through the hub body while minimizing the excess material required to do so. Furthermore, the large diameter of the Torque Transfer Flanges keep spoke lengths short, which provides increased stiffness in every direction; radial, lateral, and torsional. The result is a 2-cross 28-spoke wheel that sets a new benchmark for stiffness/weight ratio.
Front Hubs – Cane Creek provides two options for front hubs, 18-hole radial and 24-hole high flange 2-cross. The high flange version provides the same benefits as the rear hub, incredible stiffness at a low weight, and were designed specifically for the demands of mass start racing and urban abuse. The 18-hole radial hub is race-specific, intended for all out high-speed against-the clock events, where a bit of stiffness can be sacrificed to minimize aerodynamic drag. Because of this, our radially laced hubs are only available on Cane Creek’s track specific 50mm and 85mm deep section carbon tubular rims, making you virtually invisible to the wind.
Bearings – Hidden SpeedAll Cane Creek wheels come with Track-specific 26mm x 10mm x 8mm sealed cartridge radial contact roller bearings. We have gone to great efforts to provide the smoothest feeling, fastest rolling bearings out there. One twist of the axle and you’ll feel the difference. Our tests have shown that our standard track bearings have less drag than the competition’s ceramic bearings, by up to 67%! However, if that just isn’t enough, we also offer our own Track specific hybrid ceramic bearing upgrade kit. Cane Creek continues to push the forefront of bearing technology and as new bearing offerings become available, we will provide additional upgrade kits.
Rims – Rounding out the Package
Rims are carefully selected to suit specific applications, and when such a rim did not exist, we made one. Our 85mm full carbon hollow section tubular rim is the perfect example. It was designed be the fastest thing on the track, bar none. It achieves maximal aerodynamic efficiency when coupled with a 19mm tubular tire and foregoes a brake track to save weight where it really counts... at the rim (Remember that whole moment of inertia thing from above? It applies to rim weight just as it does to spoke nipple weight). Additionally, deep section rims were chosen because they have been proven to be more aerodynamic than disks wheels when wind conditions are variable... like on outdoor velodromes where the vast majority of track racing occurs (Tew, G.S., Sayers, A.T., Aerodynamics of Yawed Racing Cycle Wheels, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 82(1999) 209-222).
For applications where aerodynamics are slightly less important than the ability to change speed quickly the 50mm carbon tubular is the ideal rim. It spins up quickly so you can get the gap, but is aero enough to let you keep it. In addition to the 50mm and 85mm carbon tubular rims, a 33mm carbon/aluminum hybrid clincher, and a 30mm aluminum clincher rim are available. The carbon aluminum hybrid is perfect training, long fixed gear rides, and casual racing while the aluminum clincher is ideal for urban use; commuting, alley-cats, and everywhere in between.
Handbuilt
Every Cane Creek wheel is handbuilt in Fletcher, North Carolina and is signed by the builder as an expression of their dedication to providing you a fast, durable, and lovingly crafted wheel. Indeed, our wheel builders collectively have over 50 years of experience building wheels by hand. This know-how combined with meticulous engineered parts means our truing tolerances are second to none. Seriously, we can build a wheel. We’ve overheard well-versed wheelbuilders say, “that is the truest wheel I have ever seen." Rumor has it that our wheels, straight out of the recyclable box, have been used to “calibrate” a new wheel builders eye, to show them an example of a really true wheel.
Easily Serviced
Out of the box, Cane Creek wheels are perfect. Since we use our own custom spoke nipple with integrated nylon inserts, they tend to stay that way. However, as with any product, they may need a bit of attention if used/abused for long enough. Fortunately, besides being fundamentally fast, the patented Cane Creek Crono wheel design has the added benefit of making wheels remarkably easy to maintain. Since the spoke nipples are at the hub, truing can be done without removing the tire... nice for clinchers, but a truly wonderful feature for tubulars. Included with every wheelset is a custom Cane Creek spoke wrench, though any 3/16” open end wrench will work as well.
Bearing replacement is also simple, press the old ones out, and press new ones in. Replacement Cane Creek track specific bearings are available through us directly, but we sized the bearing to be an “off the shelf” size if you find yourself in a pinch.
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