Sunday, July 20, 2014

This Wheel's on Fire

The beginnings of an interesting wheel build.
Taken March 28, 2014
     About three months ago I finished building a pair of wheels to carry my favorite bicycle: my 1980 Fuji S12-S.  It was a little bit of a unique experience for me.  It was the first time I was building a pair of wheels completely by myself, and it was also the first time I was building wheels by myself, for myself.  As mentioned in my long ago post detailing my first true solo wheel build, I had only helped build my "first" set of wheels.  These wheels would be completely built by me, and completely for me.

     For about a year, I planned to lace modern rims to the original hubs for my Fuji.  I had prepped the hubs long ago, so the only real hang up was the cost of new rims and spokes.  I'd settled on my cheap stand-by: SunRingle rims, specifially the CR-18.  SunRingle makes inexpensive, yet effective and aesthetically pleasing rims.  They are stout and plain, just how I like most things.

     The spokes are really the hardest thing to procure for a wheel build.  They are expensive--you can't get away from that.  You can skimp on a hub and rim, but even cheap spokes add up.  Unless you own a bike shop and you're ordering straight from distributors, you're either paying too much or buying too many.  To make matters worse, I wanted this wheel build to mean something, which means I wanted decent spokes and a slightly unique lacing configuration--double butted spokes and a four-cross pattern.  Four cross means that each spoke crosses four other spokes.  This demands a longer spoke, and my spoke length calculations were telling me I was going to be needing some of the longest spokes that I could get from work.  In fact, there was one size that I could not get from work.  This was the real hang up.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I should do.  Then I stumbled upon a site I'd seen a long time ago, and all of that changed.

     Wheel Fanatyk is a half blog, half online store dealing exclusively in the lore, science, and distribution of wheel building.  It is a tremendous resource, if not for their product then for their knowledge.  The owners of the site are gracious and kind enough to provide custom spoke lengths at a tremendously low price!  And the spokes were actually decent!  I was overjoyed, and certain there was a catch.  But after the spokes promptly arrived, packaged and marked in an exceedingly professional manner, I realized I'd found a true gem of a resource.

     For the record, I highly recommend buying spokes from this website for your wheel builds.

     As previously mentioned, I wanted to go "all out" and so I bought spoke washers.  These "obscure bike components", as they were once described to me, are intended to seat between the spoke head and the flange of the hub shell.  My first non-solo wheel build, years ago in Indiana, used spoke washers.  To me, they were the icing on the cake, the cherry on top of a wheel build to mark it as the product of true craftsmanship.  Afterall, I hadn't seen spoke washers since I had used them.

The finished front wheel.
Taken April 19, 2014
     What I didn't know was that spoke washers are intended for 1.8mm spokes.  The spokes I had ordered were 2.0mm, because they were double butted.  That means the spokes I had bought forever ago were only single butted!  I was tremendously confused, and eventually had to accept the fact that my memory left out that detail.  Luckily, spoke washers are still recommended for lacing the old Sturmey-Archer hubs with modern spokes, so I will be able to use my small pile of washers for that build, whenever it may happen.

     Once I had everything gathered, I set to work lacing the wheel.  The catch, this time, was that I intended to do as much of the build completely by myself as I could--that means no instructions, no guides, no books.  Just me, a hub, thirty-six spokes and a rim.  Overall I did a pretty good job.  I did have to consult my latest wheel book, "The Bicycle Wheel" by Jobst Brandt, only a few times.  Revered as the wheel builder's bible, it's goal is to dispel the mythos surrounding the bicycle wheel with the hard steel of an engineer's overly analytical mind.  It is worth a quick read by any serious bike mechanic.  Depending on one's pre-existing skill and knowledge level, it may not shed much light but it will undoubtedly contain some useful nuggets of information.

The finished wheels.  Ignore the poor photography.
Taken April 19, 2014
     Lacing the wheel is, in my opinion, not the hard part of building a wheel.  It is basically a puzzle, and with enough time I think anyone could figure it out, if they wanted to.  After the last nipple is threaded onto the last spoke, the second part of the wheel build can begin:  the tensioning.  This is where practice can manifest into skill and intuition can potentially make your day better.  I had a little bit of a time tensioning these wheels.  The front wheel turned out alright, but the rear wheel gave me some trouble.  Somewhere in the process of bringing up the tension on each spoke in a uniform manner, consistency left me and a handful of spokes were off by quite a bit.  I had to bring down the tension on everything and basically start over.  But I got it.

     In the end I got a pair of nice wheels.  I've been riding them for about three months now with no issues.  I haven't checked the tension on the wheels yet but I feel that when I do they will not be too far off.  The final step in the whole process was mounting my brand new tires.  Before this, I had been riding Continental Gatorskins for nearly 3 years--almost as long as I've been working on bikes!  I love the Gatorskin and always recommend it as a quality 700c road tire, as most mechanics will.  But I had decided to change it up this time, and get something a little more appropriate for my touring frame and commuter bike.  I went with the Continental Touring Plus.  Still having the extreme puncture resistance that is built into the Gatorskin, these tires sport a more all-terrain tread pattern, are wider, and have a reflective sidewall.  I can say that I am exceedingly happy with my choice.  I will probably never put a different tire on my Fuji.

The finished rear wheel.
Taken April 19, 2014
     I really want to say that the new wheels feel different.  I want to say that I can feel the strength and responsiveness of the new wheels.  I don't know if I can say that honestly.  What I can say with complete certainty, however, is that I ride with an overwhelming satisfaction on the wheels I built with my own two hands.

No comments:

Post a Comment