Big brands have PR companies to get cycling media to get the word out, we don't. All we have is this blog and our social media, so we're sorry to hit you twice in a row with RCG36 stuff (and there's going to be an email about the preorder tomorrow), but this is the horse we ride.
Preorder: We're doing a preorder for initial orders. Prices will be $50 less than the prices you see posted in the store right now, plus you will get 20% off any tires, tubes, valves, brake pads, cassettes, tubeless tape, rotor adapters, or rotors that you buy with your wheels. The wheels come with tape installed, and you're not going to need any rim brake pads with these (in fact DO NOT use rim brake pads with these, it will go horribly wrong), but you might want/need extras or stuff for other bikes. We plan to have the pre-order open for roughly 10 days, and delivery will begin in the middle of May (May 7 is NOT the middle of May!).
Campagnolo and custom: We haven't listed any Campagnolo builds for these because they require a whole new product and our store is overcrowded as is and the percent of stuff we sell that's Campy is tiny, but we are happy to do Campy as available. Just send us a note. Chris King hubs are $50 more for Campy, Aivee hubs are not available for Campy. If you want other customizations like silver spokes or alloy nipples or Ai dishing or whatever else, we can do that (some incur an extra charge - $18 for alloy nips, $10 for Ai dishing, for example). If you want some hubs that we don't have, or you want to do a BYO hub option, just send us a note and we'll figure it out.
It was interesting to wake up and see EVERY CYCLING NEWS SITE with stories about the new Mavic gravel (actually they call it All Road) products. They agree with us about rim width for the tires you're likely to use in these applications - theirs are 22mm internal, ours are 21.5. All of their wheels in the AllRoad (I might like that better than gravel) are aluminum, which is usually our line, but we encourage you to use our RCG for Road and Cross as well as Gravel, and we think the weight to toughness to cost ratios for all three of these applications work well with carbon (again with the disc brake only stipulation).
There are probably people out there thinking we've lost our religion on alloy. We have not. Not at all. There are still many great alloy disc wheel products that we'd LOVE to build for you, and we won't be de-emphasizing them at all. But in this realm and this use area, we feel that there are carbon products that definitely punch their weight or above. I happened upon a blog post I wrote almost precisely one year ago and it freaked me out how much I'd predicted what we're doing now. Had totally forgotten that post, but glad I found it. We'll discuss these versus alloy choices in a later post.
COST. Why do these cost what they do? Why don't they cost a lot more. Are they not as good as other carbon wheels out there? What's up? Carbon has always done one thing better than any other for most wheel builders: increase margins. You can buy less expensive carbon wheels than RCGs, and you can buy WAY more expensive ones than RCGs. As far as quality goes, these are as nicely molded as any carbon rims I've ever seen. They don't break ground in weight or width or shape or any of those scores - we don't see any attractive rims that really do. These are not cheap for us to buy, and we likely wouldn't have a lot of resistance putting King hub builds out there for $2000 rather than $1490, but our margin goal is met with our price, and we think it's a great price and an outstanding value for you. If you want to pay extra, you're more than welcome to do so.
Valve stems: 44mm tubeless stems are perfect (we've used Stan's and WTB, both work great). The stems on both Vittoria and Challenge latex tubes work great with no extenders. For Conti tubes, you'll need to go 60mm, as what they call a 42mm length is too short.
There were already some great comments and questions on the first post, and don't hesitate to contact us or post a comment if you need to know something we haven't addressed.