Between 2011 July and 2011 September, my partner and I did a 3 300km bicycle tour of southern France. The below is a review of a product that we used during that tour.
The ExtraLite UltraTerra TNT wheels use Stan's ZTR 355 rims, titanium straight pull spokes and ExtraLite Ultra hubs.
I bought these wheels used in 2010. They have seen a lot of action, most of it off-road. Though a rear drive-side spoke snapped on a training ride a couple of weeks before we left for our trip, I took this as incident rather than as harbinger. I used one of the the supplied extra spokes to fix it and had no other incidents (or harbingers) before we started. Within the first 400km of our trip, though, drive-side rear spokes began snapping. By 700km, four spokes had snapped, all of them 2mm down the threads.
Steel straight-pull spokes are common in France, but only for 622mm wheels. For the first two spokes that broke, I was able to find Sapim Laser spokes in the correct length (277mm - 279mm). I was unable to find replacements for the 2nd pair that snapped, even after visits to over 15 shops throughout the western Rhone Valley and eastern Massif Central. Not only were they unavailable in the shops, none of the shops' distributors carried them. Eventually I found a batch of 275mm DT Pulstar spokes, which the owner gave to me free of charge because he was happy to be rid of them (and me). These spokes were long enough to grab a few threads, which allowed me to get down the road until I could find a permanent fix.
Once we found an internet connection, I ordered from a mail order house in California Sapim CX-Ray spokes for all of the drive-side rear spokes. This delayed us two days and proved exceptionally expensive (70USD). It was only through the grace of Cantal Cycles in Saint Flour that I was able to re-build this wheel. The owner cracked the cassette, gave me a chair and let me replace the spokes. He then trued everything up for me. Without charge.
In the midst of looking for spokes, I contacted UltraLite in hopes they could give advice. The e-mail I received back indicated that these spokes require perfect alignment in order to not snap. This seems a lot to ask of the consumer in good circumstances and makes these wheels unsuitable for touring.
Once the wheel was fixed, I had no further problems. The wheels gained around 12g through all of this (from 1 132g to 1 144g), but this 1,1% increase made them worthy of touring.
Though it is more inconvenience than problem, the freewheeling mechanism on this hub has long been sticky. It always engages correctly, but disengagement is often partial. It is enough that it will turn the cranks quite quickly if I don't keep my feet on the pedals while freewheeling. The only consequence of note is that, while walking with the bike, one must keep one's eye out for the pedals. Particularly the pedals I had for this trip, which would as soon take chunks out of your leg as rotate.
