I’m resurrecting my commuter as a single speed and I need a new rear wheel for the application. Since part of this project is learning some wrenching, I’m wondering if it’s a good idea to try buying the requisite parts and building a wheel myself. I’ve read over the very comprehensive page on sheldon brown’s site, and I think I understand it pretty well. Is it as easy as following those directions? I don’t have any tools besides a spoke wrench; is a truing stand, spoke tensioner, and dish stick absolutely needed to do this job? I’m not necessarily going for cost effectiveness, but it’s not my goal to break the bank here…
I am definitely a ‘shade-tree’ mechanic and no expert…but my opinion is:
your caliper brakes work pretty well as a truing stand. For a ‘one off’ project like this you can probably
cut that corner. I always just twang my spokes with my fingers to ballpark tension and on a fixed gear
I think your dish should be pretty symmetrical (compared with a having to hang a 9,10 or (gulp) 11 speed cassette
off one side. You should be able to eyeball that also.
I mangled an MTB wheel once in a bad crash and did all of the above by feel. At the next race I took it to the
Mavic support center and the shop pro said it was as good as it was going to get…so you can get pretty
close.
I’d say build it by feel, and then go find the best wheelbuilder shop in your area and ask the pro to double
check it. Offer him a 6-pack for his expert opinion…but be prepared to pay for any real re-work he might have
to do.
For a truing stand I have seen people use an old fork with a screw driver zip tied onto the side as the truing guage. Fixie wheels are actually easier to build if you are running a non dished wheel.
My question is if the bike you are using has horizontal dropouts. If it has vertical dropouts you can single it with a chain tensioner, but not fixie it unless you use the White Industries ENO eccentric hub.
Kevin
Yea, it has horizontal dropouts. One of my concerns with the wheel parts was getting the right spoke length. I used the excel spoke calculator on that same website with the hub (alien bikes) and rim (mavic MA3) I picked out and it spit out 293mm. Sound realistic? What happens if I buy spokes that are 294 or 292, or what if I used the wrong measurements? Would that be a will-not-work scenario?
Also, may be changing gears a little, but I found http://www.cambriabike.com had some great prices for spokes. Anyone ever deal with them? EDIT: Well a simple forum search answered this question - they’re a legit operation, so as long as I got the spoke length right…
Lacing a fixie wheel is no different than lacing any other wheel. With a fixie though you don’t even consider any lacing pattern with fewer than 3 crosses. Wheel dish can be checked by flipping the wheel in the stand w/o moving the pads. While it is possible to true in an old fork, it is easier to learn with a proper stand. Also, you need two forks, one for the front hub and another for a rear.
Your fixie hub might be spaced 120mm, so it is possible you will need spacers to make it 130mm. These can go on both sides, or can be tweaked a little bit if you need to adjust your chainline.
As to spoke length, I always err to the shorter spoke size. IOW, 294 won’t work, but 292 will (and might even be recommended.) It depends on the decimal point after the 293.
Yea, good point with the hub spacing. I just checked it last night, and it’s 126mm between the dropouts, and the hub I had picked was 120mm. Is it optimal to get a hub with 126 spacing, or do I have more room to adjust the chainline with a 120 and spacers?
Where you put the spacers will depend on what kind of crank you are using. If you have a real track crank, then the chainine is at 42mm and you want to shim 3mm per side. If you use a road double, then you want the chain to the parallel to the centerline of the bike and you will have to figure it out.