Crank Brothers wheel rebuild...another option.

silentbutdeadly

has some good things to say
At least an option that doesn't involve scrap metal...

Some years ago I succumbed to a combination of ignorance, illusions of bling and CRC's stock dumping policy to acquire a late 1st generation CB Cobalt 29er wheelset for the XC bike.

Turned out to be not a shit wheelset for my needs. The only trouble is/was the soft as butter freehub shell (I have a spare). Eventually, the inevitable happened and I snapped a spoke on the drive side of the rear wheel.

Let's face it. CB make disposable bling. Generally it's a functional item that they've altered to suit a marketing aesthetic. Rarely do they make it better but the result can look spectacular. And you can feel good about your purchasing decision...

But CB have a dark side. They fiddle with stuff. Mostly because good bling isn't always good engineering. So nothing stays the same.

In my case, spokes for 5 year old wheels are unobtainable unless you resort to European shipping fees. The nipples and their special washers...long gone.

In the years since this purchase I've learnt much more about wheels. I've used a custom wheel builder for a while and started playing with wheel building myself. The Cobalts were beyond me...I could true them but that was about it.

So I sent them to the professional. The upshot is that he's rebuilt the wheel. The spokes used are custom shortened (by the local distributor) DT Swiss plain gauge spokes. All drive side spokes have been swapped out. The bill amounts to just over $100 plus shipping...so not expensive. About $30 of that was for the 12 spokes.

Said professional was circumspect about the results given the used nature of the rim but he's happy enough with the true and tension to suggest there's still a few years in them.

The upshot is that you might have been fooled once but there's no need to consign your no longer new specialty weird bling wheels to the scrap if you ding a spoke and you can't get parts.

As long as you haven't done a Shredden on them then you can possibly have a future that might wipe some buyers remorse out of mind...OK maybe just further down the list...
 

SummitFever

Eats Squid
Nice one. Its always great to breath new life into something the manufacturer has given up on.

Apologies in advance to those that have seen this before, but if you haven't read this "review" of the Cobalt wheels then you're in for a treat.

Here's a choice quote to wet your appetite:

Jim Brownrigg, Crankbrothers' head of engineering elaborates: "To make sure that high-end wheel consumers would be completely stunted in any and all attempts to replace or repair their damaged wheels, we had to strategically optimize every wheel component to be slightly different than the part it's replacing, while being functionally identical to the wheels we launched in 2005. Eliminating all backwards compatibility was a big challenge for us, but with a lot of hard work we made it happen."
 

redbruce

Eats Squid
Some years ago I succumbed to a combination of ignorance, illusions of bling and CRC's stock dumping policy to acquire a late 1st generation (but probably applies to any generation of) CB Cobalt 29er wheelset for the XC bike.

Turned out to be not a shit wheelset for my needs (well apart from the next two sentences). The only trouble is/was the soft as butter freehub shell. Eventually, the inevitable happened and I snapped a spoke on the drive side of the rear wheel.

Let's face it. CB make disposable bling. Generally it's a functional item that they've altered to suit a marketing aesthetic. Rarely do they make it better but the result can look spectacular. And you can feel good about your purchasing decision...until reality bites.
Just, well, there. Fixed it for you.

Out of curiosity, is there anything CB makes that's actually good?
 
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Shredden

Knows his goats
Fuck CB.

Everyone have a laugh at 15 year old me's expense.

[video=youtube;DpHAruksfgY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpHAruksfgY[/video]
 

ctguru

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I'm doing an order from Germany in a couple of weeks. Check out Hibike.com, if they have some ill chuck them in my order


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

yuley95

soft-arse Yuley is on the lifts again
I had a set of 26" cobalt for a few years and they were good wheels for XC. Emailed CB and asked for the best place to get spare spokes/nipples 'just in case' and they arranged Jetblack to send me 4 of each at no cost.

Was a few years back now.
 

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
Fuck CB.

Everyone have a laugh at 15 year old me's expense.

[video=youtube;DpHAruksfgY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpHAruksfgY[/video]
I hadn't seen this before. Still laughing.

Is the bike an M9? If it is it looks identical to one displayed at Bicycle Express in Adelaide several years ago before you destroyed it by riding over a pebble.

Also I share the OP's pain as I too was stupid enough to succumb to that particular CRC sale for the exact same wheelset. They still haven't died yet though. Weird.
 

aanon

Likes Dirt
Out of curiosity, is there anything CB makes that's actually good?
Yes, stickers and packaging.
On a serious note I used a pair of 2nd gen Opiums for over a year and they were fine, no issues at all, lent them to a mate for several months and still no problems, can't complain about that
 

Shredden

Knows his goats
Is the bike an M9? If it is it looks identical to one displayed at Bicycle Express in Adelaide several years ago before you destroyed it by riding over a pebble.
Nah, V10.3 - heres a pic after I swapped out the Opiums for Deemaxes.

Jesus that headangle looks steep looking back at it now!

P1020356.jpg
 
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