White Industries H3 Overhaul

A winter wheelset comes through the doors as usual: broken, tired, and needing some well-deserved attention.

In this case, new bearings were installed elsewhere and quickly deteriorated within the span of a month. The main reason for this quick death was the type of bearings installed. The bearing company Enduro offers traditional wheel and suspension pivot bearings which are titled “MAX”. The “MAX” suspension bearings were installed on the first overhaul (see photos for worn “MAX” bearings) ; they are now being removed, and replaced by the appropriate wheel bearing type.

What started as a hub overhaul is turning out to be a full wheel rebuild. There are ten of these cracks on the current Velocity A23 rim (in all fairness, this wheelset has roughly 15,000 miles in total).

The new plan is to cut out the freshly overhauled hubs and lace them to a pair of new winter-worthy rims: Kinlin’s XR31t rims. They are:

• tubeless ready
• 31mm tall
• 24mm wide

They will double as great “B” cross wheelset, especially when paired with the new tubeless tire options by Clement.

The new rims came in a week later. They were decaled, laced, and tensioned that day.

Setting up for a 2-cross pattern on the rear wheel.

The finished project.

This is where they will spend most of their life. Countless miles of harsh, Pacific Northwest, road riding.