Thread Drift

[DebW]

I've been trying to estimate how may spokes I've cut in my lifetime... The fun part was cutting the first half dozen spokes, which are under so much tension that they can fly across a room when you cut them. To be safe, we'd stand the wheel on top of a trash can and cut the lower spokes first.

My estimate of the number of exploding tires I've experienced is 400-500. I'm surprised I don't have hearing loss from that.

Ho-lee cow, Deb. I had no idea that bike wrenching was such an exciting and dangerous profession!

I assume it's not quite so exciting anymore. The large number of blowout in the 70s was due to the 27 x 1 1/4 inch tires that didn't fit rims very tightly. Combined with our shop compressor which inflated tires too fast. It was actually pretty nerve-wracking when 3 or 4 blowouts happened in one day. Sometimes it was so bad that when one person headed towards the compressor, everyone else ran the other way. And the shop was small, so it didn't help much to run away.

Cutting tensioned spokes is inherently dangerous, though we never had any injuries from it. Thank goodness for the metal trash can. Our chief wheelbuilder (not me) did get tendonitis frequently from turning the spoke wrench thousands of times.