I build my own. Nothing else is as satisfying as riding your own wheels. And if something goes wrong with the wheel while riding, you know how to fix it!
Is it not really uneconimcal, most parts and rims are much cheaper and the tools required do not cost much. Mostly when the rim is burned out you can just reuse the hub.
Bike shop wanted £30 a wheel to do it, so I thought, "how hard can it be ?" Wasn't that difficult. I used the back wheel as a guide for the front, then the front as a guide for the back. Must have done about 8 now as I swap out the dull spokes on my old roadies for stainless steel ones.
I'm lacing my own wheel only because my rim and hub had to be ordered from two different shops, otherwise most online places build the wheel for "free" if you order all the wheel parts there.
old-school tradesmen type guys like Marcel are amazing to watch at what they do, I bet if they took away all that fancy tech he could still build up a brilliant set of wheels by feel and with the most simple tools. cool video.
If I build a wheel for someone but they're going to buy the parts on their own and all, how much do you think is a humane compensation for building the wheel itself?
Anyone attempting this should have this book. I build all my wheels and this book has been of untold value. Professional Guide to Wheel Building By Roger Musson
@John because books are usually where the accumulated wisdom is recorded and stored. Video may be instant but the written word has usually been properly considered in getting it onto paper. And if it's wrong it gets corrected. Books rock!
Literally everything you need to know, very little you don't need to know, very accessible and very easy to follow. Anyone who is vaguely technical can build a good wheel with his book.
well I just went to the page that you suggest and the written instruction in there are just bad as they mix info and the drawings are not good at all, perhaps a good video will be needed
I bet I'll now hear this guys voice in my head everytime I ride my DT Swiss XC wheels through rock gardens. "Maybe in the evening you can feel also... your arms."
I literally built my front and rear wheels for the first time yesterday to replace worn out hubs. They are holding together well so far. Wish me luck on the trails tomorrow =S
Building wheels is just so much fun, really adds another dimension to building up your own bike. Quite nice to just work on a wheel after a long day of work as well, just take time and go through the steps. It's highly addictive though, I now build all my own wheels + a lot for friends/family as well!
Just built my first one yesterday - a tough job that requires a lot of time and thinking (=patience). To me it is not really an exact science: I was working with much less sophisticated tools, those in the video are pretty high tech and price range... This way I will have to get into an extensive testing period on the bike. But I know the logic now and what is required to do this. It is a great feeling to have built the wheel by myself against all odds and service staff advice (="buy a new wheel/bike"). I think every rider should try it on a cheaper construction bike to understand and get a feeling of it.
I have ebike that I built myself and it came with an assembled wheel and hub motor.. Due to a horrible sidewalk now im forced to build a wheel.. I'm an accomplished auto mechanic with over 30yrs xp points, and during this little venture I've realized no matter how smart you are there's ALWAYS more to learn... 🤯
Wish this guy was working in the south burbs of Chicago. I'd be bringing over bmx wheels and hubs and asking him to build these for me, PLEASE. Awesome education.
sometimes a classic how to book does the trick! :) I had a bicycle maintenance book that I was 'raised' on as a mechanic. I still have it in my workspace.
I build my first pair of wheels about 3 years ago and they are still rideable. Now I have so many now I have some pairs of wheels I don't what to do with them, lol It is very addictive.
I mastered the science of wheel building years ago. Considering the cost of a good bicycle, it's a valuable skill to have. Overhauling an engine by myself was more complicated and time consuming. The more complicated things get, the simpler they turn out to be. Lol.
It's all easy when you have all the tools and follow the instructions properly. I built a rear wheel for the 1st time and have done over 1000 miles and had no issues, but I think it's more to the fact that I invested in a park tool spoke tension tool at the cost of £50 which I personally think it's a must have tool for wheel building.
Haven't heard AASHTA in ages, was very sad when the old man passed but it seems his legacy is still there. I've built some real franken-freak wheels (to carry my clydesdale-plus carcass) using his guide, the craziest was a cross-4 equal length crow's foot cross wheelset in 36 hole.
Wow, that seems complex. I used Sheldon Brown's guide to wheel building, it seems much easier to follow; had i not, i might not have even attempted to build the wheel in the first place! Turned out alright, too! did end up having to re-do my work a couple times but i'm an idiot. Also i remember Raoul Luescher had some wisdom to spare re: spoke tension/wheel stiffness. Highly recommend looking that up.
Absolutely fascinating as I was thinking about building my own wheel. After watching this video, looks through off the peg options 😂 and starts another jam donut
this is exactly the sort of thinking i am very very poor at. i learn by rote, then upon successfully doing something, i dissect the process and can understand it from the inside out, but this way of learning is super slow for me. common sense stuff takes me a long time to absorb. good on ya for a good build!
It really is too. This video is great for giving someone with no experience a taste of the process, and those with lots, something to dissect and discuss. But there's no real need to take a course. Choose your components, find a decent tutorial and sit down on a rainy day and start. My first set I had to relace a couple times before I got the spokes oriented right, but accept it takes some patience and a quiet, focused mindset. But that might be the hardest part.
I've been wanting to learn wheel building for the longest time. I've built bikes from scratch from the bare frame up, including pressing in headset bearings. Wheel building is just about the only thing I haven't tried myself.
Give it a go on a cheap wheel. The first time I did it was because I was too broke to buy a new wheel, but I had two busted wheels from two different bikes, one with cracked rim, and one with busted axle. They had the same number of spokes, so I just zip tied the rims together and swapped over the spokes one by one. That doesn't even require learning the lacing pattern, so it's an easy start to wheel building.
I learned only in my late forties after a lifetime on bicycles and goofing around with them. I now make wheels for my adult children and occasionally for friends... although the saving is not what it was. It is a bizarrely calming and meditative process, although frustrating at times. And you get to make some silly wheels.....
I've just watched a long haired teenager build a wheel in 15 minutes and you just made it look like you're building the space shuttle!! Not everyone is racing the Tour de France!
Important question!!! How should I set the spoke path? When a spoke crosses another, should I make it cross from the inside or the outside? Or, should I just cross all the subsequent spokes ON the spokes that are already set?
Astral'o Pithecus You can build working wheels either way. I prefer to start by inserting the trailing spokes on both sides: these are the ones that run on the inside of the hub flange and ’pull’ when you put the power down on the pedals. This way, the leading spokes will cross on the inside, and will bend inward with some heavy pedaling as the trailing spokes are pulled tight. If done the opposite way, there’s a (minute) chance that looser spokes will catch on your mech cage when you pedal hard, as they bend outwards.
Depending on where you live...there's a great shop with an amazing wheel building in Northern VA that teaches wheel building and you can also go to NC to the Appalachian Bicycle Institute for a class. Both are amazing from what I hear. I'm sure there's plenty of other places to learn as well. Those are just two I know of in my region.
Sheldon brown's website has some reasonably decent wheelbuilding instructions. I would look for the stuff on spoke tension by ear as well, since he says some kind of dated things about spoke nipples rounding, and also recommends doing the non-drive side dry (which I disagree with), but as far as the lacing, and general process goes, it's quite good. Another good book is "the bicycle wheel" by Jobst Brandt.
Finished my first wheel build today. A few pointers... As step 0. Check to make sure that all your new spokes are exactly the same size and your LBS didn't give you a short one by mistake. On the first pass , tighten the spokes at the minimum possible so that they'll hold on to the nipple. Once everything is together, if you have a rim brake , mount the wheel on the bike, use a zip tie to tighten the brake one click at a time and tighten it little by little finding the place where it touches the brake, until it touches on both sides at the same time.
How to make wheel building easier: 1. use less parts 2. Fabricate most of the parts via homebrewn manufacturing, ie 3D printing and CNC? 3. Less spokes, stronger shock absorbers, but with mounts (connected to where the spokes would normally go) that allow them to absorb impacts across a larger part of the rim’s circumference, ie. 3 pneumatic/spring shock absorbers with 120° mounts.
Guy: "Now it's for DT Swiss... we have a rule. Every time it's the DT Swiss [logo], it's on the valve hole." Si: "Ah, OK! So your tire logo is lined up with your hub logo." Seems like he understood exactly what he said.
Your voice over sounds like one who would explain how to rally race. A good tutoral voice orcer. I will say your laking the small details needed to understand. How you bringe that up to you. but I like it!
After I spoke to a few wheel building masters, I tend to leaver it up to the pros. One day I may build my own wheel set but for now I enjoy rim doing it for me!
Hi GCN, love your videos. Have to say that this once is a bit too detailed to be interesting the the casual observer and not detailed enough to show the home mechanic how to build a wheel with ordinary tools and missing out important info on thread prep, selecting our components, truing without a stand, stress relieving without a flippin' hydraulic press... Just my opinion, as I said, big fan of your other stuff!
I learned to build wheels when I was 15. It was harder then. 36 spokes and softer less precision rims made truing a bigger challenge. The better rims have made thing so much easier. Now a days wheels come prebuilt more commonly and wheel building is not a very practiced skill as it was.
Can you convert a 12/142mm thru-axle wheel into 135mm Quick release fairly simple? I want to get a couple of entry level DT Swiss wheels but they're all thru-axle and my bike has quick release. I have seen conversion kits. But then there's the width difference.
Yesterday, the nipple spoke on my wheel unscrewed and dislodged. So, I fixed it myself by removing the inner tube and screwing the nipple spoke back to its position. Many questions came to my mind. How can I know it is tightened enough? Is it evenly distributed the force? Can I do it myself without any additional equipments? Or Must I bring the wheel to the professional to fix it? Thank you for your answers in advance.
Hey Si... really quite cool to see the process.. One quick question.. did the master allude to using tapping the spokes to determine the Art of the tune? ref from a animated movie of a Mom tuning her sons wheels.. IM sure you know this cinematic masterpiece..
I have a hub with a dynamo with 3 gears that I need to attach to the rim of my bike but no technician knows the length of the wheel required for this hub. Can you tell the length?
I have a 24 spoke wheels and I would like to convert it to disc brake. Is it recommendable to do it. The spoke count does affect on performance with a disc brake. Could it be a little risky?
I just started learning to build wheels so maybe I'm wrong but your diagram, like the one at 8:30 seems wrong. I think you want to center the wheel in respect to the dropouts of the frame and NOT the center of the hub...right?
😞 I've just took spokes off my old rim and put them on the new rims... I didn't know I had to get a truing tool and a spoke tension tool. I'm starting to regret re-building my carrera.
