Wheels!

I have to admit that I have never built a set of wheels although I always wanted to. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that it was too difficult and too expensive. An inexpensive but reliable set of wheels can be had for as little as $100 off of eBay and sometimes that even includes a set of clincher tire and tubes too. The wheels wouldn’t even be too bad for the most part as long as you don’t expect a set of Zipp 404s. $100 is pretty hard to beat. To build wheels you will need to purchase a truing stand, a dishing tool, a set of rims, a set of hubs, at least 72 pokes (for 36 spoked wheels), at least 72 nipples, and, if money allows it, a tensiometer. Holy ball bearings! You could probably buy an entry level bike for all that cash!

For the most part, with the huge variety of pre-built wheels available on the market today, you can get away with not building your own. If there’s a combination of rims, spokes, and hubs which you need but doesn’t exist or if you want to upgrade a single component of your wheels (i.e. upgrading to a PowerTap hub) then there are several wheel building retailers that can take care of your needs. Many people on Slowtwitch will rave about the service from Wheel Builder and I have had great experiences with the folks at Pro Wheel Builder.

But there’s a certain allure to building a set of wheels. It’s almost as if you achieve some new level of understanding. You pick and choose your components all the way down to the lowest level of detail and you handle each component with your own hands. There isn’t a square millimeter of those wheels that you don’t know about it. The mystery of which spoke goes where is demystified. Finally, you know how the wheel is put together and, more importantly, you know how the wheel works! That allure… that feel… that depth is priceless and it cannot be beat by a $100 set of wheels.

I remember my first foray into wheels back in the 80s. My father had a 10-speed department store bike from Montgomery Ward. This was way before we got into cycling hard core. Something possessed me to “help” keep my father’s bike in good condition. I tightened all the nuts and screws where I could and then I decided to tighten all the spokes! So, with my small Crescent wrench in hand, I proceeded to turn all the spokes until they would turn no more! After doing this 72 times, I felt proud and accomplished. I couldn’t wait for my father to come home and tell him of my achievement and how I “helped” him maintain his bike.

To this day, I still remember the look of shock and horror on his face when I told him what I did. I imagine it’s like a kid telling his father, “Look, I smashed out all the windows in the house so we no longer have to clean them. Now we can get fresh air into the house all the time.” Thankfully, my father understood my intent and looked past the fact that I turned his wheels into ovals and lopsided tacos. He spent the rest of the evening truing the wheels and working the spoke tensions to get something close to a circular wheel. It was quite a feat considering that he didn’t have any experience with spoked wheels before that.

I recently came into possesion a used Park TS-2 truing stand and an old Wheelsmith tensiometer. The truing stand came from one of father’s old co-workers. At one time, the old co-worker wanted to learn how to build wheels too so he spent quite a bit of money to get set up. One of the wheels he built failed and he took a nasty fall in the company parking lot. Frustrated and angry, he gave the truing stand to my father. My father tinkered with for a while but it soon found itself not being used for the next 15 years. The tensiometer was purchased by my father and it also sat around unused. I suppose my father’s garage was getting a little full so all that finally made it’s way to me.

So let’s build some wheels!