To Superlace or not ?

Is there anyone that upgraded their front rim without going with Woody's Superlacing and that regrets it?

I need to upgrade my front rim and ordering the rims and lacing them up myself using the stock spokes would cut costs by over 50% but I do not want to regret it.

Thanks in advance

Ever lace a rim yourself? It isn't hard. Just takes a bit of time. Buy the rim&spokes from woody and do it yourself if you're tight on $. Make sure to tighten the spokes after riding it for a bit.

Less than $200 if you wisely choose the DID rim developed for the Super Enduro. Uses the same spokes, laces up normally rather than forcing a Jap patterned rim to fit on a Euro indexed hub. RADMFG sells it for $179

www.radmfg.com/DID-Original-DirtStar-Rim-21x1-85-p/dido-21x185.htm

If you have trouble truing it up, there's always someone nearby that can help, usually the HD guys will have his card. Local guy here charges $50... but I taught myself to do it years ago. Not hard but can be time consuming the first few times.

The 950 and 990 spokes are already oversize anyway so not much benefit there.

If you have a busted rim then definitely just replace it with the Dirt Star from the SE. If your stock wheel is still good I would try to sell it complete and get a new one complete, price difference won't be that much to bother with the effort of building it yourself.

+1 on the SE rim with stock spokes. Mine has taken a pounding, and held up beautifully. That's a great price from RAD, I paid way more than that from an online dealer, even with a discount.

Superlace isn't just bigger spokes, it's changing the angles the spokes enter the hub Spend a few minutes searching OC for the pics of our dented rims with our "oversize" spokes

My buddy knows/rides with Chris Jones who has been competing in the Dakar races for years now & Woody did a set of Superlace wheels for him... not a single spoke lose, broken or bent over the entire race duration while the rims remained true. To put it in perspective it is usually a daily problem with repairs in the rest periods at night. That's a pretty good testimony if you ask me.

I'd build the front rim as strong as you can- personally I'd like it to be nuclear-proof as it's the narrower front that takes the most damage with the least amount of tire/tube air volume to handle it.

I've seen so many DID Dirt Star rims bent at the KTM/Husaberg/GasGas shop that I'm not as impressed with them as some people seem to be.

Call Woody & ask questions- they'll tell you what they know, and set you up with the stuff to do it yourself if you wanna save $ or learn to do it yourself. I'd think spending the money (if you have it) will provide you with wheels you don't have to worry about for years- kinda like painting a car or soldering- the difference in what you can do vs. someone that has done thousands of them is worth considering spending your hard-earned cash on.

Been there, done that. Its a big win for myth and good advertising. I found the end result no better...and I'm not alone in this either. Nothing special, its just a wheel...a really overpriced one. In fact, its the only wheel I had trouble keeping true.

Lacing a wheel is sort of a dark art to motorcycle mechanics, like carb tuning or fork valving. Folks think its hard but it really isn't once you know how. There is no Jedi master, no great yogi on the mountaintop, that aura of bullshit only cons the rubes...of which are abundant here.

FWIW, pm Neduro or Pyndon and ask them how the SE rim did on the Baja 1000. I myself have beaten the ever loving crap out of mine and its still true. Baja babyheads at 70, Rocky mountain rock garden passes fully loaded, Copper Canyon back trails, etc... nada, no blemishes. If the goal is to spend the absolute most on a wheel and get some kewl stickers in the box with it, then by all means that guy in Colorado is your best bet.

The OP asked about Superlacing and nobody had answered his question so far... one even mentioned spoke size which just confuses things for someone asking us for help making an informed decision

as for "not alone in this" bad experiences with Woodys, where are the pics & posts? Share that with us

Woody & the gang will spend time on the phone with you answering endless questions and will even straighten your stock rims for you & re-use all your stock spokes & nipples- while you wait if you're on a road trip if need be. They don't seem to care if you spend "the most" and offer every option of hubs, spokes, rims & lacing techniques there is.

"sort of a dark art"? aura of bullshit, indeed. No pissing contest here

I have had both. I destroyed the front rim on my SE so I replaced it with the same DID dirt star laced it myself came out great. Although I do have a truing stand. The 990 I have has a super laced front wheel with billet hub I really see no benefit still round still strong but still will bend and brake while using low air pressure and ridden hard

If you can do it and have to tools save the $$

I'm not a professionnal mechanic but i'm sure I can lace a wheel with help of all the available info on the web.

Question is about pure strenght, by how far is Woody's Superlaced wheel better than just changing the rim myself?

I see some are ok with the SE rim but keeping in mind that some are ok with the stock rim, it would be nice to hear also is what tire pressure do you run, what suspension set-up, how do you ride, etc?

FWIW Woody's charges: Standard SUPERLACE & True $99.00

two local stealerships (HD/Custom shops that do their own) quoted $200-300 a wheel + tax "depending" on what the mechanic "encounters"- they didn't like the "different" rim at first. Other local Japanese/Euro bike shops charge shop rate ($85^ +tax) an hour with estimates @ 2 hours a wheel. I know shops that send the wheels out & up-charge you for their margin (&shipping). None of them know about /how to "Super Lace" or offer any guarantee, and we can guess how many total wheels are laced up between all of 'em in a year.

$99 for the Superlace treatment as well as the actual lacing & truing of the wheel suddenly doesn't sound bad- and Woody's offers a 1-year guarantee on their work if you Supersize your spoke/nipples, which brings their total in line with the local yocals for just a standard wheel lace-up, that you certainly could do (better) yourself, esp if you get a spoke nipple torque wrench and pay attention to what you're doing after you've read up on & YouTube'd the subject (ah, the internet).

+1. Low-pressure is where the rims have the best chance to get dented or pretzeled. Dirtbikes run as low as 5 or 6psi here in the Appalachians, and that's when the strength of the actual rim is shown. I've seen (admittedly with amazement) multiple dents in DID Dirt Stars including those off the Husaberg Factory racebikes the dealership bought from KTM NA. I know Nick Fahringer & Mike "Junior" Lafferty are smooth riders (& multi time Enduro Champions) on bikes weighing 300lbs less than ours. They don't need the low pressures I'm talking about since they're usually floating over stuff.

Add the weight of our bikes, additions/mods, our body & gear, fuel, tools, etc and a solo rider could easily weigh 750-800lbs. Couple that with the higher speeds we run and that's a LOT of energy to put through a rim at thr 20+psi we run. The 2012 Dakar on the showroom floor w/o battery, <1/2gal fuel weighed 499.7lbs, naked, on state-certified digital scale pods made for weighing vehicles - I was a little shocked. On the plus side. all the dirt guys in the shop thought it was pretty cool we ride our bikes in the places we do once they saw that!

I'd be more worried about how narrow the front wheel bearing loading areas are on our bikes I've seen skateboards with bigger bearings!

My rims are MEGALACED... which trumps Superlaced by a factor of 10 piss points. About the same though in terms of actual reality. I thought by Superlaced, they meant lacing the wheels cross 3 with longer (heavier) spokes to effect a more rigid structure when the wheel leads into a whack. Rigidity is also a function of the rims rigidity itself, spoke gauge, assembly torque, tires, pressure, even the mount and its initial compression all factor.

The ones I've seen, "Superlaced", were stock hubs with a Jap patterned rim, X3 on one side and X2 on the other...which is strange, half-super, half normal.
. Which imho would set the wheel up for dealing with disproportionate moments of deflection when its whacked. X3 is nice, and surely lends more impact resistance, but its not necessary... even with a correct hub allowing for proper X3 on either side. I'm not convinced anyway, that this sort of assembly makes for a better wheel.

If I remember correctly, the "jap patterned rim" is typically an Excel A60.
The X2 / X3 is done to match the Euro hub (save cost, otherwise have to buy a billet hub)

From vague memory, this is exactly what Ned, Tim & Lyndon ran on the 950SE for Baja...

Pretty sure they ran the stock rim. I think Lyndon was sent one of those x2x3 deals, maybe for the race bike or maybe for his own, and sent it back...and another friend eventually got it the mail later for which he sent it back too...both iirc a little put off by the bastardized way in which it was put together.

I saved a lot of money doing it myself and it is seriously not hard. Definately worth a try yourself.
I dealt with Chris at Woodys Wheels, he answered all my silly questions, sent me the Excell a60 rim and spokes, rim drilled to match the original hub because it is euro and the rim japanese. X2 and X3 pattern instructions because I wanted to lace it myself. I can not recomend them highly enough.

I do like to shop locally but could not easily get what I wanted and the the price difference was substantial.

After multiple bends in the original rim I have not had any in the new one, fingers crossed.

Is there anybody who has gone from a 1.85" SE rim to a superlaced 1.85" SE or Excel rim and found a noticeable difference in how it holds up?

Obviously rim width and quality will make a huge impact on strength so I'd like to take that variable out of the equation.

I only know what I've read/inferred here on ADV
http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7283240&highlight=indexing#post7283240
http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8734478&highlight=indexing#post8734478

Maybe they're not the latest word, I dunno.

Here is a good update from Pyndon and others.

I recently needed a complete new front wheel and I compared all the options and sources and when comparing apples to apples the Woody's was only slightly more $$ than other options. The wheel is X2 X2 laced if that is still an issue for some.

http://advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=19790421&postcount=313
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6252935&postcount=10
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6253651&postcount=12
http://advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7283240&postcount=50

When you give stuff away in trade for advertising, you get these sorts of glowing reports in trade. Believe what you will. I know these guys, and am aware of the back story. If an A60 trips your trigger and really believe its 7000 series aluminum is better than DID's 7000 series aluminum...and if the weird lace necessary to make it happen doesn't bother you... because its "Super", then by all means cattle up to the gate and give'em your CC number.

Cheers and good luck with that.

I call bullshit. Do you have any evidence of this "trade for advertising" going on? Or should we just go on the fact that you "know these guys".