A year we’ll never forget—far too much loss and suffering and yet amongst the chaos rare lessons are being offered. Do you also feel a sense of deep change? It will take years to process the significance of this period. For cycling, it’s been a riding and business boom—a reminder how essential bicycles have become. At Wheel Fanatyk, it’s been super busy—thanks for all your trust and support.

Today, let’s think about the role of hubs. Historically, I focus on spokes, tension, and rims. Hubs are an afterthought. I used to claim that hubs have just 2 jobs—provide a rotating center for the wheel structure and NOT FAIL. Hubs with wonderful beauty and technical novelty that don’t rotate smoothly are not much value.

Here are a few that help me better appreciate the potential for hubs to do more than just anchor wheels. These transform wheels and generate new dimensions for riding.

Simplicity
Nothing quite beats visual simplicity. In a high tech world, complexity so often comes with progress. This Ridley Kanzo Fast Classified is a standout example.

© Cycling Tips and Ridley

Disk brakes make a clean look and this bike amplifies that with no front derailleur, visible headset, or exposed wires or cables. For me the Kanzo’s best trick is hidden in a hub—an electronic internal 2 speed cassette hub by Classified.

© CyclingTips

This bike has 22 speeds despite only a cassette and single chainring to be seen, thanks to this clever hub. Benefits:
• Electronic shifting.
• Trim hub harvests the internal volume under a cassette for its mechanism.
• The gearing benefits of a front derailleur without maintenance.
• Shift under heavy load (1000W).
Granted, the Kanzo is an elite machine but the elevated concept inspires and we hope to see more bikes where a hub makes a big difference. Check James Huang’s recent review in CyclingTips.

Minimal Motor
In an era of widespread disk brake use, can the disk rotor do more than stop? What if a rotor engages an electric motor that rides piggy backs on the disk caliper? This is the mission of an ex-Tesla engineer and team—Bimotal. Their Elevate electric motor system does just that.

Riding shotgun.

Imagine these benefits:
• No added wear to the drive train.
• Motor can be removed in 20 sec and switched to another bike.
• 750W for 28mph with estimated range of 30-60km.
• System with battery, weighs 2.7kg, there’s none lighter.
• Nil friction when not powered up.
• Introduction in 2021.
Well, of course we’ll have to wait and see but the elevated concept inspires and I expect to see more of this clever idea.

Internal Gears
The internal gear system of Sturmey Archer for bicycles was humanity’s first variable speed transmission. In pursuit of low weight and high efficiency cycling favors external transmissions with derailleurs. Still, internal gearing has huge maintenance advantages. Rohloff’s 14spd hubs and Sachs and Shimano geared hubs continue the geared hub option today. Lately however, the Kindernay hub from Norway advances internal gearing yet further.

Disk brake, fat bike, through axle hub.

Features:
• 14 speeds with the widest range available.
• The lightest hub of its type.
• Hydraulic shifting.
• Gearbox can be moved from wheel to wheel
• Adjusted for life.
• Belt drive friendly.
• Through axle compatible.
Check CyclingTips definitive review.

Do you know a cool hub that transforms the bike? Please share!

Cargo and E-bike Spoke Gauges are Hot
Growing popularity of thicker spokes—13G (2.3mm) and 12G (2.6mm)—is no surprise as cargo and e-bikes are fast expanding categories. This trend is easy for wheelbuilders:
• Straight gauge and brass nipples prevail for strength and economy.
• Tension is less important, spokes succeed more from mass than tension.
• Wheels build faster without the elasticity of thinner spokes.
• Less design challenge = less need for the subtleties of lightweight wheels.

Check Adrian Emilson of Melody Wheels describe the bold way he is addressing this opportunity.

A beautiful mounting. The woodworker shows through!

Next post: Spoke Threading for the Masses!

We’re still around and, as you are reading this, so are you. Pause and give thanks.

With crisis comes change so let’s strive for better outcomes. In the meantime, support each other and don’t stop sharing. In that vein, here’s an update on Wheel Fanatyk.

It’s harsh now, even to be a cyclist.

Read more →

Dishing tools differ even though they all do the same job in the same way–a bar that spans a diameter of the wheel, arching over the hub axle, with a means to touch the axle end cap. All adjust for different hub widths and can be used on a range of rim diameters.

Their superficial resemblance hides that fact that these tools are really quite different to use. Serious wheel builders have no shortage of personal preferences.

Read more →

What does it take to build like a master? How does a master juggle so many variables to make truing into a smooth process? 

Unfortunately, most masters can’t illuminate their methods because truing is a wordless series of hunches based on huge experience. Many thousands of adjustments and outcomes must be witnessed before a builder has a crack at mastery. 

Wheel building has been learned this way for more than a century much as foreign languages are often learned through immersion. Repetition works but it’s not the fastest way and your expertise is limited by what comes your way. Repetition, as a teacher, can also lead to bad habits and boredom.

Is there a better way to learn besides sheer repetition? Yes, by first looking closely at the two dominant building methods. 

Read more →

It’s the beginning of The Big Dark here in the PNW. Every year someone turns off the lights until about March. Some days we practically need flashlights to get around!

Down under, it’s reversed and in Colorado all bets are off. The CX season is in full swing, gravel riding is balling. What adventures do you have planned?

Seasonal motivation
For a dose of wheelbuilding motivation, check these two shorts:

Read more →

Many of you in the North American cycle trade are planning to attend one or more of the CABDA shows—San Diego, Chicago, New York, and Denver—across the calendar in 2020.

I’ll be presenting at the PBMA Technical Clinics that precede each show: San Diego (Jan 14), Chicago (Feb 11, 12, 13), and New York (Mar 10). Denver’s tech sessions are not yet final.

Here is a rare chance to experience the latest tools and gadgets you see, hear, and read about. Learn how they work and try them out. It may affect your own equipment plans and certainly empowers anyone aiming to be a tech resource wherever they are. I’ll be showing much more than Wheel Fanatyk devices—it’ll be as broad and impartial as I can get.

There are big trends in wheel building, part of massive change occuring in our sport and industry. Give yourself a step ahead and register for these clinics. Face to face and hands-on cannot be shared in a blog! See many of you there!

Visited a clever wheelbuilder last month (10/19) and, guess what—I learned all sorts of new stuff. Ryan Kereliuk treated me to terrific vegan food in Victoria and shared some of the mischief he’s been up to. So many cool wheels and innovations from one shy guy. Check his pics for a glimpse.

Read more →

The last part of this series covered these wheel building optional topics:
– Rim washers
– Pre-stressing
– Tying
– Aging

Let’s close out with three options that are as much paperwork as mechanical and one important point that is mostly strategic.

This week’s list:
9.   Stickers
10. Presentation
11. Tension, trueness mapping
12.  Criteria for adopting new techniques Read more →

Nothing beats riding in newly arrived Fall weather. In the north hemisphere, those start now! Zipping through scenery colored with seasonal change, feeling the lingering warmth of Summer, such a magical experience—an invigorating and restorative tonic that reaches the core of our human experience. Frankly, despite my attempt, it’s well beyond words.

© New Yorker—cover 9/23/19, by JJ Sempe

Much of cycling is this way and doesn’t get better with analysis. Still, I find it irresistible to consider all the variables from physics to aesthetics, after the ride. Maybe I’m just trying to keep the endorphins coming!

On my list of leisure pursuits are podcasts and essays by well informed bicycle experts who do their best to demystify as well as entertain. We benefit from a fine selection of such voices these days. Near the top of anyone’s list… Read more →

In part 1 of this series, we discussed a number of wheel building techniques that may be dispensable for some:
– Time spent matching components.
– Lacing fixtures.
– Punching spoke heads into hubs.
– Spoke windup control.

Let’s cover four more.

5. Rim washers
Lacing a wheel with washers is tedious. Slowing down lacing is a cost someone must pay. Every time you drop a washer in the rim (inevitable!) and lose minutes retrieving it, one can’t help but wonder, why washers? Granted, in circumstances of inadequate design, where washers make a better wheel, use them. Please, however, always advocate for features to be incorporated into the 68 standard components of a wheel rather than adding 32 more!

Black washers are faster.

Advice: try to avoid washers.

Grrr, it’s burly man vs wheel!

6. Pre-stressing
More time is spent unnecessarily pre-stressing wheels than perhaps any other building activity. Wheels need two forms of pre-stressing: a) setting the spoke line early in truing and, b) stress relieving spokes when they are at full tension. Doing these and nothing else should be fast. Set spoke line by levering spokes at low tension with a steel rod. One time sets the line. No need for massive hydraulic presses, bending rims on the floor. rolling wheels while leaning on the axle, or flexing the rim against your stomach with elbows and grip. These can cause wheel (and body) damage that takes time to repair.Properly pre-stressing steel in spokes is accomplished by raising and then lowering their tension once the wheel is fully tight. Metallurgically, such relieved spokes are more fatigue resistant. It takes under 30 seconds to grab parallel sets and give them a firm squeeze. You can ignore most everything else suggested for pre-stressing. You’ll be faster and your wheels optimal without.

Advice: most “pre-stressing” consumes time without benefit. Minimize yours.

7. Tying
Historically, rims were weaker and more flexible (or very heavy). Tying spoke crossings with wire and solder added stability—wood rim wheels especially benefitted. Today, its contribution is no longer needed except for restoration or aesthetics. Make sure you tie and solder like a jeweler, the finished tie should glow like liquid silver, not like hasty electronics soldering. Follow this method, do it rarely and for the right reasons.

Advice: Tying is for restoration and decoration, not 21st century strength.

8. Aging
All materials are elastic and change over time under the influence of gravity, temperature, and chemistry. It makes intuitive sense to let a new wheel, freshly invested with high tension, rest before seeing use. That intuition, however, is misguided. A wheel must be optimal and stable without aging—and it can be done. The needs of racing have been high incentive to make aging unnecessary. Your final pre-stressing steps will be the last time a wheel experiences elastic (permanent) deformation. Only trauma and fatigue can bother it. Except for rim cement, do not expect aging to improve your wheels. Such superstition is too expensive, even for psychological reasons!

Advice: Aging is unnecessary, you and riders should not be paying for it.

Four more wheel building techniques remain to conclude this discussion of questionable practices. Stay tuned!