Lacing the First Wheel

Finally it’s time to start building! It’s an exciting moment, but this is no time to get all worked up. Wait until the kids are in bed then set your tools out, read the relevant parts of the instructions thoroughly, twice, pour a glass of decent red wine, take a deep breath and relax. This is going to take some time.

The guide books all describe the building of a rear wheel with 32 spokes laced three-cross, which is what I’d planned to start with, but the tardy arrival of the Sun rims has put paid to that because I’m too impatient to wait any longer before getting stuck in. So the XT rear hub and F519 rim with 36 black spokes it’ll have to be, and I’ll be using Gerd Schraner’s lacing method. At this point it’s a huge advantage if you have to hand an existing similar or, preferably, identical wheel to which you can refer in order to compare your progress with what you already know to be correct.

All the guides start in the same place – right hand drive side with a leading (or pushing) spoke – but after this they start to diverge. Schraner’s method involves lacing the entire drive side first, then starting on the non-drive side. It quickly becomes apparent that this is fine up to the point where you need to push the inside non-drive side spokes through the hub. If you push them straight through they entangle with the already laced drive side spokes, and to avoid this happening you have to bend the spoke by such an amount that you risk putting a kink in it! I never had this problem when I built my first wheels using Sheldon Brown’s method, and for the life of me I can’t fathom why Schraner would suggest this. It just doesn’t work!

Anyhow, I soldier on and eventually get all the spokes in and laced. A few have a pronounced curve to them but thankfully no kinks. Schraner’s book gets thrown into a corner of the room and with a big gulp of wine I revert sheepishly to Musson, ashamed that I ever strayed from his path of righteousness. Using a nipple driver for the first time, I take up the slack in the spokes by spinning up all the drive side nipples until the tool disengages, and then wind up the non-drive side nipples until the spoke threads are just hidden. The new tool is an instant hit, just like Musson said it would be. Now it’s starting to look like a proper wheel and a quick check reveals that it’s surprisingly true and round. This has taken about an hour and half, so now’s a good time to walk away and take a break!