I recently took a day trip down to Eugene, and while there, I had the pleasure of stopping by Rolf Prima’s headquarters for a little tour.
For over a decade now, Rolf Prima has been producing high quality performance wheels. Their paired spoke design differentiates the wheels, and makes them really stand out on the bike. I have had the pleasure to review both their P-Town single speed wheelset, as well as their ECX tubular cyclocross wheelset. Both have held up very well, and after seeing how Rolf Prima builds and test their wheels, its no surprise either.
Make the jump to see the tour.
Engineers at Rolf Prima design the entire wheel in-house. Orders are then placed for the parts they need. Once manufactured, all those parts are assembled by hand at their headquarters in Eugene, OR.
Spokes in a variety of sizes, as well as a few boxes of hubs.
Laced up hubs ready to be attached rims.
At one of their build stations, a man with a fabulous beard diligently assembles a Rolf Prima wheel.
After being assembled. Each wheel is stressed a total of three times on this machine which “breaks in” the wheel so when you ride it for the first time there are no pings and pops from the spokes. It also helps keep the wheel in true much longer. From my experience, it works well. After using two sets of their wheels I have yet to have to pull one off and true it.
Next come the decals. This station is marked up to accommodate all the different wheels they make.
Each decal has a small indent to help position it in correct spot.
What better way to label your decal drawers than with the decal that is inside each one.
Rolf does a lot of in-house testing in a corner of their workshop.
They even run wheels through an entire life cycle in about two weeks using a drum tester.
The finished product gets boxed and stacked on shelves, awaiting to be shipped out to the customer.
