A good primer on basic wheel building is hard to find. I’m regularly asked to create one since the articles in our library address wheel building subtleties, concerns past the initial challenge to assemble a rideable one.

Here is part of the solution, four articles (10k words!) written in 1986 for BICYCLING magazine. Many of our present day concerns (extreme dishing, carbon fiber rims, tubeless systems, disk brakes, etc.) are missing. The fundamentals have not changed so this series is still useful.

Dour but persistent!

It is a good, basic primer on wheel building that is still relevant 30 years later. After all, the tensioned wheel remains at the heart of cycling and the laws of physics are unchanged.

The link is here. Hope you find it useful. I am working on an updated version of this instruction but it keeps getting delayed. Go figure.

Back from NAHBS (3/9-11) and CABDA (2/1-2), time for a Wheel Fanatyk product update!

Tensiometer improvements
Carrying case upgrade: a luxurious black Nanuk 904 (MSRP $49) with custom foam inserts. One customer called it “like a Navy Seal lunchbox.”

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