Don’t Let Your Dream Be Just A Dream!

What’s up! This is Tommy!

Pollen fever season is officially over and it’s the perfect time for riding in Japan. I’ve been taking the long way home for the past few weeks.

Today I’m writing about custom wheels. My dream carbon wheels to be exact! I am the kind of person who doesn’t want my dream to end as a dream!

I don’t wanna ramble too much so I’ll get into the main topic first. I’ll do the rambling at the end of this post.

We’ve prepared wheel sets supervised by your’s truly that are ready to ship immediately!

I’ll introduce you to the track wheels first.

ASTRAL Vail4 Carbon × PHILWOOD Pro Track

Philwood hubs, of course. I chose the Pro Track Hubs for this one.

With its hollowed-out flange, this masterpiece features components made from lightweight materials—including the axle (F.6061 Al/R.7075 Al), end cap (F.7075 Al), bolts (Ti), and lock ring (7075 Al)—and comes standard with Carbonite bearings optimized for smooth rotation, ensuring a seamless riding experience.

These hubs are hand polished, which I was shocked when I first learned about. I used polish finish on black rims to pay respect to Philwood’s incredible craftsmanship. The spokes are double butted Philwood spokes.

Astral VAIL4 rims with 42mm of rim height.

It’s no secret that these wheels are light weight, but I want to address that I felt its high rigidity when I was building the wheels.

The precision is so impressive that I found myself thinking, “Wait, is it already done?” just by evenly adjusting the spoke tension.

Just installing these wheels will make your bike feel like a completely different bike. Single speed bikes are very easy to tell these difference due to how direct they are.

After all, with a single-speed bike, you really feel every shift more directly!

↑This is a bike I recently built for a customer with the same set of wheels. I wanted to show what they look like on bikes. I’m also really stoked that I got to install them on the UNVER Rapid frame, which I designed.

Next!

We have also prepared a set of geared 700C wheels.

ASTRAL Outback Carbon × WHITE INDUSTRIES CLD

I asked my coworker Samba to build this one. Here’s what our conversation sounded like:

Tommy : “Samba, I want you to build a wheel that you want right now.”

Samba : “I built these wheels since I wanted a set of wheels that I can use for road riding, gravel riding and other various types of riding. I wanted a tough and reliable set of wheels instead of a lightweight and serious racing wheel. What do you think of these? I think they’re sick af. Duuude I really wanna buy a Black Mountain Cycles Mod. Zero and put these wheels on. I still can’t decide the tir-

Tommy : Okay okay, that’s enough. Let’s talk about that some other day. (Damn, it does sound like a fun set up)

Anyhow, Samba built them with a lot of passion.

I think these would be perfect for zippy gravel or all-road bikes—so, looking at the models we carry, the CRUST Bombora, MASH All-Road, BMC Mod Zero, and Ritchey Road Logic would be very nice.

The hubs chosen by Samba were White Industries CLD hubs.

The sealed bearings made by Enduro spins smoothly, while having a simple and easy to maintain mechanism, which always adds extra points for bike components.

It’s not uncommon for sprockets to get stuck in the freehub body when used in rough conditions, making disassembly a real pain during maintenance… But since White Ind. uses a titanium freehub body, it’s less prone to that kind of trouble. It’s details like this that really win me over.

Whether you have a riding style that demands high torque or you’re a power-oriented rider, rest assured that this product is built to withstand heavy use.

Above all that, the hub sounds super sick.

Astral rims for this one as well.

Designed with cross-country riding in mind, the Outback Carbon is a lightweight model that prioritizes strength above all else within the lineup. By making the rim shape asymmetrical, the spoke tension balance has reportedly been increased by 30%.

This one is also built with Philwood double-butted spokes for a rock-solid build!

And of course, these wheels are available at Blue Lug Yoyogi-Park, where I work!

I put a lot of effort into planning this, so I really hope it reaches a wide range of customers. I’ve had it listed on our online store, so please check it out!

Carbon rims… I’ve been curious about them for a while, but let’s be honest, they’re pretty pricey… But I think a lot of people feel like, “Well, if I’m this interested, it’s just a matter of time before I pull the trigger!”

I totally feel the same way.

I wasn’t planning on going easy on them just because they’re carbon. I was thinking on abusing them, so I wanted to choose something I could trust and feel confident on.

The deciding factor for me in choosing Astral was definitely the fact that I’d used “Rold Prima” wheels for two years and had an incredibly positive impression of them.

I decided to build a bike based on a road bike, something casual yet capable of serious riding and started assembling a demo bike. But I ended up falling in love with it myself and bought the MASH All-Road on the spot.

The Rolf Prima Hyalite 25 wheelset I chose is an aluminum model designed for gravel and all-road riding. While built for strength, it’s incredibly light!

The 24-spoke pattern, known as “pair spokes,” looks cool but made me wonder, “Is this really going to hold up?” But once you ride them, you realize the stiffness far exceeds your expectations. And they roll like crazy!

I used to think that even if a bike was a bit heavy, “unbreakable” was the ultimate goal! But now I’ve become a total fan of lightweight wheels. To build such high-performance wheels, you need a sturdy rim. (The hubs are also specially designed by White Industries)

Yes, this is the result of exceptional engineering and rigorous testing!

And so! “Astral” was born as a standalone rim brand, drawing on the technology developed at Rolf Prima. I found out that their rims were trusted by many bike builders who participated the MADE Bike Show, which knocked me out.

“If I’m gonna get a set carbon wheels, I’m using Astral rims.” I said to myself.

In this day and age where the majority of brands are discontinuing rim brake compatible carbon rims, Astral still makes them. I felt a great passion from them for the industry and it made me want to support them.

After throughly considering whether if I should get carbon wheels for my Crust Evasion, or cook up my Geekhouse CX that I’ve been stashing…I landed on my track bike!

I bought the Philwood Pro Track Hub (20h/24h) about three years ago with the intention of eventually using it with the carbon rims I’ve always wanted, and I’ve been using it ever since, so now it’s finally time to put that plan into action.

It’s been 5 months since I built the wheels. I’ve done a ton of skids and tortured the heck out of these wheels, which made a lot of my friends anxious, but this is how I want to ride and there’s no way I could recommend them to customers without heavy use.

So far, I’ve had no issues. They were just slightly out of true, but that’s it. I mean, carbon fiber is something that is used for race cars bodies and chassis, so it’s not a surprise.

It made me realize that, both for myself and as someone who makes recommendations to customers, new possibilities have opened up, and I’m really looking forward to see what’s ahead!

The downside is that it’s definitely expensive, but it would be such a waste to give up just because of the price!

Don’t let your dreams stay a dream!