Professional Repair and
Shop Operation Class

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Wheels

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Day 2 of Bike School. Wheels. We had been exposed to hubs and rims by Tim on Day 1. Today Evans guided us through the process of selecting spokes, hubs, and rims, which we would use to build a set of wheels from scratch. It was the best day of the course, with much of the time spent on the bench, and we finished with a useful product.

Evans beginning the spoke lacing
Evans is pretty laid back, with a subtle sense of humor and a wealth of experience with bikes. I grew to like his style and learned a great deal from him over the two weeks.

We used a 3 cross pattern for the wheels, with the heas of the pulling spokes on the rear wheel located on the inside of the hub, being crossed by the static, non-pulling spokes. The pulling spokes have a tendency to pull towards the outside, and the static spokes, that aren't subject to as much pedaling force, are used to hold the pulling spokes in. We loaded all of the spokes in one phase, then began to lace them in a symmetrical pattern.

Evans
We learned to use the spoke tension meter, truing stand, and dishing tool. I've trued many wheels, but never in a systematic way using the spoke tension meter.

There were open lab sessions on Tues. and Thurs., so I spent a little time working on my Bike Friday, cleaning and lubing and basically just puttering around. It was good to have something other than the relatively new bikes on which to work. It's always easier to maintain a new bike than on and older one with an odd mix of components that don't work properly. The bikes used in the class were bikes that had been returned to the manufacturer because of various warranty problems. They served their purpose, but another set of older bikes with cheap, greasy and dirty components would have been more of a challenge, and closer to reality for most of us working in shops.

We could also use the open labs to finish previous class exercises. Many of the exercises needed to be inspected and approved by an instructor, and some of the students needed the extra time to finish. If an exercise was left incomplete, the course completion certificate would be withheld, which unfortunately happened to one of the students.

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