Wheel Building courses
agent_buchwald
Posts: 256
I am after any experiences or advice regarding wheel building courses - it's basically a hole in my mechanical knowledge that i'd like to plug. I'm in Brighton and want to know if any are recommended or if i should just teach myself and learn through experience. I'd like to be able to build my own wheels but also be able to tension and true wheels. Any help apprciated, thanks in advance.
Look 566
Dolan Hercules
Genesis Flyer
Sintesi 707
Genesis Aether
Charge Plug
Dolan Hercules
Genesis Flyer
Sintesi 707
Genesis Aether
Charge Plug
0
Comments
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Sounds good! Would like to know as well, in SW London.0
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Sounds good! Would like to know as well, in SW London.
Drop me a PM next week. I might (or might not) have something for youleft the forum March 20230 -
Thanks Ugo, I was hoping you'd contribute, will pm next week.Look 566
Dolan Hercules
Genesis Flyer
Sintesi 707
Genesis Aether
Charge Plug0 -
Me too - might be interested. In Reading but SW London could be achievable...
Serviced my first cup & cone bearing a couple of weeks ago - dont know what I was worried about, really easy!
Big things I would still like to learn are wheel building/fixing and suspension fork servicing.0 -
Ditto wheels are my nemesis
If you're in reading then your best bet would be the bike whisperer Google it, the dude is a bike fit, wheel builder, coach legend.Rule #5 // Harden The Feck Up.
Rule #9 // If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.
Rule #12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.
Rule #42 // A bike race shall never be preceded with a swim and/or followed by a run.0 -
I know bike whisperer does bike fit & wheel build but does he teach it too? (I guess I should ask him but I didnt think he would as it takes his trade away)0
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Thanks Ugo, I was hoping you'd contribute, will pm next week.
I was referring to Kleinstroker who is local to me. Don't know anyone in your area...left the forum March 20230 -
Okay no worries but I'm quite happy to travel for the right skills and SW London's only an entertaining motorbike ride away.Look 566
Dolan Hercules
Genesis Flyer
Sintesi 707
Genesis Aether
Charge Plug0 -
Why not just have a go at building wheels yourself?? there's plenty of info on the internet and lots of useful info on this forum also. I decided to have a go at building my own wheels earlier this year and those wheels have now done 1500 miles. I didn't find it that hard to build the wheels but the first couple of rides were a bit nerve racking!0
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start by learning to true using wheel in the frame and the brake blocks as guides.
if you get on with it get a wheel truing stand
advance from that to replacing a worn rim which is pretty straightforward (tape new rim to old and move one spoke over at a time)
from there to replacing a hub
building a new set of wheels from scratch shouldn't be required very often at all, especially with the prevalence of factory wheels these days.0 -
I did a one day course at Edinburgh Bicycle co-op in Edingburgh last year.
It was very informative and gave me the confidence to build a set of wheels of my own.
I don't think that there is any way that reading a book or watching a video can replace the knowledge that you get from building a wheel under the guidance of a good tutor. You will make mistakes but these will be spotted and corrected at the time. On your own there is a good chance that they will be spotted much later and involve a lot of backtracking.0 -
Thanks for the responses - I could just watch a lot of youtube tutorials and read books and practice but I think a bit of guidance at the beginning would go a long way, i know there's no substitute for experience and i was hoping to lean on someone else's to start off with.Look 566
Dolan Hercules
Genesis Flyer
Sintesi 707
Genesis Aether
Charge Plug0 -
I do my own wheel fettling (i.e. minor truing in bike frame), but admittedly failed horribly to bring some life back to a pair of wobbly zondas with 7000 miles on them. I'm tempted to learn to build my own wheels, but the thing that I wonder about is spokes and spoke length. There seems to be a lot of variables there to get wrong, not least their length!0
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There are quite a few spoke calculators out there. The one I used was http://www.prowheelbuilder.com/spokelengthcalculator/ which is fine as long as they list your hubs and rims. There are quite a few others out there.
I have built two sets. One was Stans Grail rims on Hope Pro 2 Evo disc hubs and the other were H+Son rims on Hope Mono RS hubs. Rims and hubs can be found from the usual suspects (Wiggle CRC etc) but the best choice of spokes (that are in stock) seems to be Rose in Germany. Their service is good and shipping only takes a couple of days.
If you are looking for an ebook to read then I can thoroughly recommend Roger Musson's book. http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php0