Hitchcocks Forum

Getting ready to rebuild booth wheels on my 1960 Royal Enfield Meteor Minor with stainless steal rims
Last bike I rebuilt with Devon Rim Company Rolltru rims as these are now quite expensive now so I have been looking at Central Wheel Company pollished Stainless Rims has any one had experience with theses and know how thay compair for looks as you cannot tell from photos on the internet
Has anyone changed the wheel size to 18inon a Meteor Minor will it make it overgeared ? Also will that fit in standard mudguards so as to keep it looking as the original bike

I don't know about the CWC product but I can answer about the 18" rims. My pal John rebuilt his 1959 MM from 17" to 18" rims and I rode it before and after. It did raise the gearing of course but this was actually a benefit, making the ride slightly less 'buzzy' if you see what I mean, with no loss of flexibility. The 18" tyres fit the mudguards no problem, after all it's only a half inch increase. I thought about doing this on the MM I'm currently rebuilding but as mine is the 'small frame' model I've gone for 17s to see how it handles in comparison.

REgards, Mark

I have bikes with CWC stainless rims and I have also recently built an AMC wheel with a 'Valtru' rim from Devon Rim.

The Valtru seems to have a profile closer to the original Dunlop. However, the CWC rims look like polished stainless should look (pretty much indistinguishable from chrome,) but the Valtru is very yellow in comparison.

I realise that the Valtrus are cheaper because they are not polished, so you need to decide if you can live with the appearance.


Another word of caution. When I built a Commando wheel using a CWC rim, I found that where the rim is welded, there is a slight narrowing of the external width (a few thou.)

This, from experience, is normal and does not cause a problem when truing the wheel.

By contrast, the Valtru width varied all around the perimeter. I was getting nowhere trying to true it using a dial gauge and when I put a vernier across the width of the rim in several places it really showed-up the variations.

I could have built and trued two wheels using the CWC rims in the time it took me to build one using a Valtru.


Maybe I was just unlucky???