Recently, we had an interesting exchange with an RBR Premium Member named Westly from Melbourne, Australia, who asked about getting custom wheels for riding Paris-Roubaix. I didn't even know amateur roadies could ride such a famous event, so Westly taught me about that, and I gave him some wheel tips. Here’s our conversation:

Westly's first email to John Marsh read, "I'm considering a custom wheelset because I’ve registered for the Paris-Roubaix Gran Fondo, which as you know covers some pretty rough ground, including stretches of pavé.”

Tip: I’m not sure photos can do justice to how bad a riding surface pavé is, but here are a few so you can see the potential for wheel carnage.

“As riders go, I'm not so heavy at 145 pounds (66 kg), so I thought I could get away with Sapim spokes on 24-/28-hole rims. I like the idea of using the slightly wider rims of 24mm as in the Australian-made Velocity Helios, and using a standard 23mm tire, a similar set-up to the HED Ardennes wheels.

“However, what hubs should I use? I had remembered John Marsh's article and am considering the DT Swiss hubs he used.

With your, and Jim Langley's insight, am I going to be okay doing this dream ride on wheels like I've described?"

John forwarded Westly's email to me and I wrote back, “Sorry for my ignorance, but where is this Gran Fondo, Westly, and when you say “pavé,” do you mean real pavé as in the real Paris-Roubaix, and as in kilometers of bone-jarring, wheel-crunching cobbles?

“Also, are you a hard, racer-type mega-watt rider, or are you out there for giggles and grins? And, how do your wheels generally hold up? Please let me know and I’ll think about it a bit and give you my recommendation.”

Westly came back with, “Yes it is the same Paris-Roubaix that the pros ride, only the GF is one week before and is for all comers with a streak of madness.”

Tip: Westly gave us this link to the company he’s using to ride the event.

“About me, I am a 68-year-old roadie still trying to get the best out of myself and enjoying what the bike and fitness have to offer. For wheels, I have a pair of 4-year-old Easton Orion IIs which I interchange with a pair of 560 Shimano wheels and so far so good. I have hit potholes and ridden a little on unpaved surfaces without problems.

“At my age and weight I am not a powerful rider as you can imagine but ride hard on occasions and do a fair bit of mountain/alpine riding. I can do a local benchmark 6.4K (about 4-mile) climb in 20 minutes. I leave it to you to make the judgment on which type I am, giggle-and-grin or hard-core. I suspect neither, but somewhere in the middle. [Jim and John agree: 20 minutes for a 4-mile climb is pretty hard-core in our book.]

“Thanks for your interest and attention to detail. Westly."

And here's what I recommended in the way of wheels:

"Wow, that sounds like an epic ride, Westly. I’m jealous – I think. Everything I know about Paris-Roubaix, which only comes from what I’ve read and seen on television (having never been there or ridden the pavé), and read in interviews with team mechanics, says that you want to be on bombproof wheels.

“For that, I would go with Shimano hubs (since it sounds like you’re on a Shimano drivetrain), which could be anything from 105 to Dura-Ace (depending on how much you want to spend), 14-gauge straight (not double-butted) DT-Swiss spokes, 32 spokes front and rear in a cross-3 pattern front and rear, and beefy rims in the 425- to 450-gram range, like those by Mavic. It’s fine to go with the modern wider rims companies now offer.”

Tip: Clincher rims used to be about 19 to 21mm wide, but today many makers are offering 22mm or wider rims, which spreads the effective tire footprint and provides a softer, more comfortable ride.

“Equally important: I would recommend 28mm wide tires and a tire pressure of around 100 psi – you might even do some test rides on 90 to 95 psi to see if that feels even better. At your light weight, you can go pretty low.

“Then, these wheels need to be built by someone who can build them right. The key skill is being able to balance the tension and ensure the spokes are tight enough and will stay that way through the beating the cobbles will give them.

“The beauty of having 32 spokes is that if you manage to hit something hard enough to break a spoke, you will usually be able to keep right on riding and just put up with a little wobble -- or stop and true the wheel first if needed. That’s not so easy when you have fewer spokes. But it would be unusual to break 14-gauge DT-Swiss spokes short of a pile-up and a pedal going into a wheel. Knock on wood.”

Tip: If you want to save a little weight you can go with double-butted spokes, but in my experience, straight-gauge spokes make a tougher wheel due to the additional material in each spoke. However, straight-gauge spokes don’t stretch as much, so the wheel-builder has to know enough to get them tight, really tight.

“The 28mm-wide tires I mentioned are fatter than the more common 23 or 25mm widths, and this provides flotation for the rims and wheels and an additional cushion for impacts from the cobbles to safeguard the wheels and you. They should actually make it easier to ride faster over the cobbles, too, and more speed means a smoother ride. Hopefully, your frame clearances allow these wider tires.

You can certainly buy Gucci hubs and rims if you want, but they won’t get you any performance gains on a ride like this and you might even bash your wheels and damage your investment. I would see these wheels more as workhorses than thoroughbreds anyway.

Hope this is helpful and that you have a fantastic ride. I would really enjoy hearing about it.”

We may all get to hear about it because John asked Westly if he would consider filing a dispatch or two about his experience riding Paris-Roubaix. With luck, Westly will do that and we’ll have something to look forward to this spring!

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Jim Langley has been a pro mechanic and cycling writer for 38 years. At RBR he's the author of Your Home Bicycle Workshop and moderator of the technical forums on the Premium Site . Check his "cycling aficionado" website at http://www.jimlangley.net , his Q&A blog and updates at Twitter. Jim's streak of consecutive cycling days has reached 6,618.