To and of my UK based XS friends, have you any experience of the cost of ordering from Heiden Tuning now that we have left the EU? I want to order new stainless spokes so if there is a UK supplier that is as good let me know.
Dom Central Wheel Components Birmingham have a good reputation for wheel building and looking at their website they list most XS650 years for stainless steel spokes at around £98 a set. This would be much cheaper than buying from Heiden Tuuning, I’ve bought a number of items from them and the German XS650 shop and prices compare with buying from the US. Import duty, VAT and a hefty charge from the Post Office to deliver items to my mind is cost prohibitive unless of course you can’t source from elsewhere. I used a specialist wheel builder near Gloucester and he got the spokes from Central Wheel Components and cut to size for my Trail bike. I plan to rebuild my XS2 wheels this year and will be buying from C W C, not sure how difficult it is but please learn from my mistake and measure the wheel offsets for both wheels before you start cutting the spokes with an Angle Grinder. If you can source the correct model/spokes then not such a problem BUT if you have to buy a generic set and cut to size then you will need to know the offset of rim to hub, My Yamaha trail was central offset front wheel and 35mm rear. If not correct then the alignment of the wheel rims won’t sit correctly in the frame. Cheers.To and of my UK based XS friends, have you any experience of the cost of ordering from Heiden Tuning now that we have left the EU? I want to order new stainless spokes so if there is a UK supplier that is as good let me know.
Thanks mate, I'm sure I read that the spokes from central were threaded too far up leaving lots of exposed threadDom Central Wheel Components Birmingham have a good reputation for wheel building and looking at their website they list most XS650 years for stainless steel spokes at around £98 a set. This would be much cheaper than buying from Heiden Tuuning, I’ve bought a number of items from them and the German XS650 shop and prices compare with buying from the US. Import duty, VAT and a hefty charge from the Post Office to deliver items to my mind is cost prohibitive unless of course you can’t source from elsewhere. I used a specialist wheel builder near Gloucester and he got the spokes from Central Wheel Components and cut to size for my Trail bike. I plan to rebuild my XS2 wheels this year and will be buying from C W C, not sure how difficult it is but please learn from my mistake and measure the wheel offsets for both wheels before you start cutting the spokes with an Angle Grinder. If you can source the correct model/spokes then not such a problem BUT if you have to buy a generic set and cut to size then you will need to know the offset of rim to hub, My Yamaha trail was central offset front wheel and 35mm rear. If not correct then the alignment of the wheel rims won’t sit correctly in the frame. Cheers.
Dom, can’t comment on the thread size from CWC, but I read a thread on the UK XS forum last year from a guy in West Wales who was complaining about the cost of buying stainless spikes from Heiden and added cost was well over a hundred pound on top of the spokes. I think Raymonds timing was just right and he missed the 2020 Brexit (also gave a grace period to the end of 2020). I bought an XS 650 seat and Exhausts and payed at least £150 in extra charges. Heiden also state on their site that UK vat is not included in the price so instantly thats 20% on top of price without the additional import tax and the extra £12 pound that the post office charge to get it from customs and deliver to you. That doesn’t include the postal charge that Heiden will also add. The post office will collect the customs duty and vat from you before they will deliver so there’s no way around@electricpoet just looking on CWC, unless I'm missing something they are more expensive than Heiden (£92 for front wheel as opposed to £72) @Raymond thought there were no charges to import from them?
I was wondering if I could use my ABBA bike stand with a bit of imagination to true up wheels.Excellent. I've never built a wheel so don't take my advice. But you might need one of these:
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I think that is a brilliant little tool, and perhaps sommat like this:
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