All Moonglu Wheelworks wheels are hand built in house by owner Neil Dunkley. They are laced, tensioned and trued using the same methods for each and every wheel. What started as a desire to build a set of wheels for a personal bike became a passion and solid part of our business. With over 20 years of wheel building experience and as keen cyclists ourselves, we provide the professional and impartial advice required when choosing custom bike wheels.
What specification are Moonglu wheels?
Our wheels are built from the component parts, hub, spokes, spoke nipples, rims and rim tape.
Hubs are sourced mainly from the following brands:
Hope Technology
DT Swiss
Project 321
One UP Components
All our hubs are fully serviceable down to the component parts and roll on replaceable cartridge bearings. They will all provide many years of service life even in the toughest conditions.
Our preferred rim brands are based on quality and build experience. These include:
DT Swiss
Stans No Tubes
Reserve
Carbon rims for road and gravel are sourced from our supplier Wheel Parts of Holland and Venn Cycling.
Since our investment in a Morizumi Spoke Cutting and Threading Machine all our spokes are cut to length from engineered blanks. We use both Sapim and Alpina spokes on our wheel builds. The most popular spoke option is Sapim Race in either black or silver. In our experience, for good quality wheel builds at the right price and weight these are the best spokes available. Upgrade options include Alpina Ultralite Aero and Sapim CX Ray. The engineering and specification are virtually identical with both spokes offering a lighter and stiffer build. They are offered on all our builds, but really make the difference on straight pull road and gravel wheels.
From 2021 we upgraded our spoke nipples to a secure lock, double square nipple in either alloy or brass. We have done this for a number of reasons. These include their compatibility with DT Swiss PHR washers and the ability to build with a slightly longer spoke, giving a better overlap of the nipple head and hence a stronger wheel, even with alloy nipples.
With the addition of the Spoke Cutting Machine we have really upped our wheel building game. Not only can we cut our spokes to any length, we have cut our inventory down to factory blanks, allowing us to always have the right spoke length available. Through repetition and recording data it has really allowed us to fine tune the spoke length on all of our wheel builds, optimising the lengths down to below 1mm, further enhancing the build quality of all our wheels.
Find out more about the Morizumi SCT
Looking for custom cut spokes in a specific length? Order custom cut spokes:
Frequently Asked Questions
How are the wheels packaged?
Our wheels are supplied in a pair of bespoke wheel boxes with our logo on the outside. Each wheel is packaged in its' own box with custom cardboard dividers to stop any damage in transit. If we feel there is a need for extra packaging we may use foam packing.
Our boxes are 100% recyclable but may be worth holding onto should you wish to sell on any existing wheels as good wheel boxes are hard to find.
What's in your wheel box?
- The wheels you ordered, road, mountain or gravel cross.
- Tubeless tape. The majority of the wheels we now build are tubeless compatible. If they are road wheels that will be used at high pressure (50 psi or above) we will use yellow tubeless tape, fitting 2 complete rounds of tape. We start at the opposite side of the rim to the valve hole, near the rim join to keep the tape overlap away from the valve hole. We're confident this method won't fail under pressure and will remain sealed. For mountain bike rims we fit 2 complete rounds of Tesa tubeless tape, again starting near the rim join, away from the valve hole.
- For 11 speed Shimano compatible freehubs we will include a 9/10 speed cassette spacer. This will be stapled to the cardboard fitting inside the box and should be obvious when the box is opened.
- If tubeless valves and sealant are ordered at the same time, we will fit the valves and secure the bottle of sealant inside the box.
Axle Adapters?
We have set up our pages to allow the customer to pick the correct hub axle adapters for their requirement. The wheels will be supplied with the correct adapters fitted, ready to go into your bike.
Delivery Time?
Neil has learnt that wheel building cannot be rushed. We don't build thousands of wheels and we don't really want to. Rushing wheel building will inevitably lead to mistakes and mistakes lead to unhappy customers. We take our wheel building business very seriously and although we will deal with wheel orders efficiently, your wheels won't be there next day. Please allow 7-10 days (UK Orders) for your wheels to be dispatched. If there is a problem with your order, Neil will make contact to explain the situation and give an estimated delivery day.
Warranty Policy
All the hand built wheels that leave our shop are built by me, Moonglu owner Neil Dunkley. If you have called or emailed the shop to discuss wheels then it will be me that you have talked to. Everything is dealt with by me, from taking the order, ordering the parts, building the wheels, packaging the wheels and making sure they are posted, I deal with everything from start to finish. Ultimately, if anything goes wrong, it's down to me!
From those that know me, to people that read my website, I hope it comes across that I am passionate about my wheels and I pride myself in their performance. Most clients are paying anywhere between £400 and £2000 of their hard earned money for these wheels and I wouldn't do the same on a website unless I was sure I was buying a quality product.
I am hands on with these wheels but I don't build hundreds of pairs, our orders come in steadily allowing me the time to build each wheel with care and attention. I have been down the route of build them as quickly as possible and it comes back to bite you. I take my time and I believe now that I am building some incredibly good wheels, time after time.
The wheels are built up of component parts, hubs, spokes and rims. Each of these are covered by individual manufacturers warranty. This is the reason we have partnered with quality component manufacturers such as Hope Technology, DT Swiss, Chris King, Sapim and Stans No Tubes. Warranty covers manufacturers defects, not rider damage. We cannot warranty fair wear and tear, particularly hub bearing failure unless it is deemed to be premature.
For the build itself I take great pride in the wheel builds. If for any reason they don't stand up to normal use then I will be more than happy to have the wheels collected and inspected at my cost. I will then correct any issues and return the wheels, again at my cost.
Fortunately problems are rare but hopefully this gives further confidence to your purchase.
Want to speak to Neil about a pair of wheels?
🖁 - 01765 601106