About this episode
Dave Rome interviews Tristan Thomas about the differences between bladed steel spokes and Berd spokes in gravel wheelsets.
Oh hi, Dave Rome here. It’s time to get geeky about spokes. I recently wrapped up a long-term review (now live on Escape Collective) where I compared two identical gravel wheelsets, one built with bladed steel spokes and the other built with Berd spokes, a spoke made from a Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, aka, Dyneema. Those white Berd spokes have been growing steadily in popularity, and off the back of Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand Prevot winning the last Olympic games on them, I was ever more curious. To help with that curiosity, Tristan Thomas of the New Zealand-based wheel company, WheelWorks, lent me some wheels in order to get some answers to questions I had. This episode is a sit-down with Tristan to discuss spokes and the considerations around an interesting polymer product like Berd. Happy geeking!
People in this episode
Host: Dave Rome
Guest: Tristan Thomas
Topics covered
- spokes
- gravel wheelsets
- Berd spokes
- wheel building
- cycling technology
Keywords
- spokes
- Berd
- Dyneema
- wheelsets
- cycling
- gravel
- Tom Pidcock
- Pauline Ferrand Prevot
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Escape Collective
Products: Berd spokes, bladed steel spokes
Places: New Zealand
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