Wheelbuilding

[SadieKate]

Just had to share my fun and games this week. I built a set of wheels! Ok, some of you have done this already but I hadn't.

The background: Bubba bought a singlespeed mtb last winter and wanted 700c wheels that he could put slicks on for our nighttime training rides here around campus. I gave him a pair of spiffy red Velocity VXC disk-specific rims for Valentine's. They're red, right? What was he expecting? Lingerie?

I had been saying I wanted to try building wheels so he made a deal with one of the employees at our LBS who managed the production shop for Wheelsmith and had been lusting after a pair of NOS polished Campy Record brake levers we had in our stockpile o' parts. Levers for a teaching session.

Thursday which also happened to be Bubba's birthday I had my first lesson. Unfortunately, there are no photos of the early stages but suffice it to say that I made a couple of the other LBS employees mad because I laced my first wheel three cross with all 32 spokes in the hub from the beginning - no sectioning for me! Piece of cake for someone who uses 5 needles to knit socks.

We got the laced wheel in the stand and I learned about tensioning, dishing, hops and true-ing (how do you spell the word true-ing?).





Wheel No. 1 - finished! Nothing like lacing your first wheel on a painted red rim.



I took the front wheel home and laced it the next day day - three cross on the brake side and radial on the other. Took it back to the shop where John helped me once dish, tension and true. I managed more of it this time before John put the finishing touches to the wheel.

Voila! Ain't they purdy?







John says they have an extra trueing (sp? ) stand I can take home to practice with. I can use an old wheel to untension (in his words, ruin) and re-tension.