9. Wheel Building Myths & Legends - crunchysteve/TriceratopsTwo GitHub Wiki

Let's talk wheels. Not sizes, such as 20" (BMX), 26er (old school), 27.5 or 29er, rather whether you buy or build. You're not really going to save money building your own wheels. Like for like, factory wheels are going to cost about the same as the bare parts. If, like me, you want a 1x10 gearing system, 28 spoke front wheels (I'll explain why a little later), 32 spoke rear, disk brake wheels, you might have a hard time finding these commercially, so that's a good case for home build. If you're looking at a 29er rear (smoother ride, smaller "saw blade" on the front bracket), a wide range of gears (eg 3x12), and 32 spoke folding bike disk wheels on the front, all of them name brand components, then you can probably buy these at least for the same price as the parts, like for like, at least. The factories have economies of scale that you don't, they make their parts from raw materials or get them wholesale, even the boutique builders.

But there's another reason to build.

A secret between you, me and other amateur wheel builders.

It's not arcane witchcraft. It's not a safety risk. It's meditative, rewarding as a personal achievement and it lets you into a sort of secret society. Those afraid to build wheels are afraid because they don't realise it's a recipe, not science. The science was done more than a hundred years ago...

LONG AFTER THE RECIPE HAD ALREADY BEEN DEVELOPED!

If you have a handful of the right, simple tools, a basic mechanical ability and a little patience, you can build your own wheels. I'm not going to teach it as a course in this chapter, but I am going to discuss the resources from which you can learn this "subtle craft."

Wheel Building Courses

The first place to start, really, is the web, the "toobs" and the blogs. And the first place out of all of these is "The Holy Book" of wheel building. It costs a few bucks for the PDF download, it's worth a million bucks. An earlier edition taught me how to build my first ever wheel, a dynamo hub wheel for my touring bike. Then I built my cargo bike wheels out of salvage rims, salvage spokes and new hubs. This "Holy Book" is "The Professional Guide to Wheel Building" by Roger Musson. My copy is the 5th edition, Roger has now updated it two more times. It has enough information to get your skills to worthy of working as a wheelsmith at your local bike shop, but it also takes you through the basics, enough to repair, build, rebuild and modify wheels as needed from time to time.

For the more visual learners reading this, there's also this very good video from Park Tools, on the basic fundamentals of building wheels from scratch.

Wheel Building Tools

Roger Musson's above mentioned e-book has a detailed list of the toy... er tools you'll really, really need, too, but the first tool you need before you even start buying parts is a spoke calculator. I live and die by Karl Stoerzinger's FreeSpoke. From the original dynamo wheel I built for my long-lost-salvage-frame-to-touring-bike-build that I took to Vietnam, through my cargo bike wheels (including a dynamo hub for the front of that and a 26er rear), various bicycle trailers and now this project, I've used FreeSpoke. If you're tied to a phone in your workshop and don't want to take the laptop out there, there's also the Quick Spoke app (iPhone) and Bicycle Spoke Calculator - Free (Android). Of course, Musson's book also teaches how to dead reckon your spoke lengths with parchment, quill and abacus.

The basic must have physical tools for actually building wheels are at least a universal spoke key (although a set of 13, 14 and 15 gauge spoke keys would be better) and a truing stand. You could use an old 29er rigid fork, stretched to accept rear wheels as well, clamped in a bench vice, but a purpose built stand is worth every penny, trust me. Mine's a cheapy, but it's one hundred times better than any improvised jig. If you really can't afford a quality truing stand, have a look at these home builds on thingiverse.

Again, for these tools, I recommend Park Tools. Order from your local bike shop, eBay, wherever. If you're really serious, chuck in a spoke tensometer, but you can tune a wheel by ear if you're a musician. It's how I do it.

Other tools handy are pliers, clamps, the usual bike maintenance tools, like cassette removers, chain whip, disk brake screw tools (Allen or posidrive as needed) and a nipple shuffler. The latter will save your fingers and reduce the number of the damned things you drop. I 3D printed mine from this thingiverse model.

Conclusion

So, do you need to build your own wheels? The only definitive answer to that is maybe. If your equipment and wheel spec is not too far removed from a standard bicycle, such as a conventional 135mm, 142mm or 148mm QR or 12mm thru axle rear, and 12mm thru axle, disk, folding bike front, you're probably home and hosed to buy. Your parts for the same won't be any cheaper than buying, really. If you deviate from the normal bicycle world, like hub brakes, 15mm thru axle, Rolhoff or Alfine rear, a disk dynamo front (or pair of them if you can pull 6 watts extra work and have too many devices), you probably need to build your own. If you're the latter, it's time to learn, or do a refresher. And who would complain about "new tool day"?!