Wheel building

I decided to build up one of the new Intense Mag 30 rims that I got from Cam tonight. I decided to build the 36-spoke rear wheel, using the Ringle Abbah S.O.S. hub. Then I could put on the SRAM cassette and build a complete new rear wheel without even touching my current WTB rear wheel (which BTW, is beat to shit).

First I needed to confirm the spokes I had would fit. I mucked about with an Excel tool that didn’t have the rim or hub in question in its database. Then Cam told me the easiest way to do this is to use the DT Swiss Spoke Tool on their website. Just plug in your rim, hub, what cross pattern you’ll be using, and the number of spokes and it will tell you exactly what length spokes you need. Brilliant.

Then I had to figure out how to actually lace the wheel. I never remember this stuff. Fortunately, the web came through again with a superb howto: Building Bicycle Wheels by Sheldon Brown. Just a great page, with easy to follow instructions. Most everyone uses the 3-cross lace, which is exactly what Sheldon covers.

Lacing the wheel took me maybe an hour or so. Tensioning the wheel down to “pre-truing” shape another 20 minutes or so. So all in all it only took and hour and a half, and it really wasn’t hard at all. It was, however, tremendously rewarding. There’s just something very fulfilling about building your own wheel.. Tomorrow night I’m off to Cam’s to use his truing stand and dish tool.