Time to build wheels?

I went for a night ride last night with some of the wheelers and met a guy who built his own wheels, took ~five hours he said and he also worked at a bike shop so I am sure he had experience with truing and was very familiar with the ins and outs of the whole thing. This morning I open up the email and from Peter White’s “Bicycle Lifestyle” google group I find the post I am listing here:

Piaw’s Blog: The Bicycle Wheel

There are a couple of videos, and information from googlers teaching googlers on how to build your own wheels- so do I take the plunge is the question. My only hold up is the investment, this is truly a worthy skill to have but the local bike shop (LBS) and inner nets can sure take care of me. The first video makes a good point about problems on the road and having the skill to deal with it, but I usually don’t go very far and to be beyond cell phone operation is even more rare.

Then there is Peter White who personally guarantees his work, and build price is very reasonable at $35 a wheel with 24-36 spokes. I will mentally bounce this around for a while, do some calculations and think about it some more.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: bike

Bike update, new frame fork and drive train.

Well I went off the deep end and bought a new track frame, so the fixie has been upgraded big time. New drive train: now 1/8″ Izumi ESH chain and added a Sugino 75 crank and bottom bracket, Dura ace cog, I went with a Campy record headset, all the Japanese stuff is njs spec. Yeah I know, what for? well because I can. The njs frame will have to wait until… I dunno. More photos HERE.

Tour de France- Stage 9 Bike vs. Dog

Tour de France accident, puppy seems okay.

She’s done!

Flickr link of photos

Brian at Aggieland finished putting it all together for me PDQ. With a new fork, wheels and some armadillo tires she’s ready to roll! Missing something…oh brakes. Well the old ones no longer fit/reach the tires- so I have been very tentatively riding it. Was very busy today plus pissn’ rain has kept me from a real ride. This always pedaling thing is a trip, just getting started is tricky. The toe clips dragged so I re-attached them inside the pedal with a lock washer to push them back ~1/4″ or so, still not enough perhaps some bending is required? It is surprisingly light, well to me. Predictions of road rash have been made… probably accurate.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: fixie

Bicycle fun, my planned fixie build

This is my old beater, and like Greg said when he gave it to me- it’s a thoroughbred. I assumed that with the distinctive lugging it would be easy to identify, what I did not know is luggs are components and shared among many bike builders. I joined a web forum and found out with their help it is most likely a 1974 Raleigh International.

After talking to Cody and Lucas here in College Station I just ordered some parts to convert this oldie into a streamlined fixed gear commuter, more details below…