Rims, Rims, and more Rims!

Christmas comes early to Wheel Fanatyk as we add several long awaited models and styles of Ghisallo wood rims and a stylish warmup top.

(1) Palmeroni - A perfect replica of turn-of-the-century tubular style rims to support the semi pneumatic tires of the period. If your bicycle is a safety between 1898 and 1930, this may be the restoration ticket. The rim is 30mm wide and 20mm deep, with a 700C circumference. I only received 10 rims in 36 drilling, so don't delay.

(2) Pista - This slightly narrower, round profile tubular rim is now available in 32 and 36 drilling.

(3) Sport 650 - Some of the most elegant bikes of the recent era are being built around the famous 650B wheel size, the EU city bike standard. We now have a beautiful wood rim to match in both 32 and 36 drillings.

(4) Corsa - Ever since the Corsa was beefed up to 400g, we've been meaning to stock it in 32. Finally, they're in. This lovely profile, reminiscent of the Lobdell-Emory rims of the 6-Day Era, is great for rim brakes or track bikes.

(5) Ghisallo warmup tops are Italian made, feature a luxurious, all cotton fleece body and robust tri-color cuffs and collars. Stylish silver embroidery on front and back make this top a true collectible. We're stocking five sizes that run one size smaller than US custom.

Check Kristina in a small.

I'm 5' 11", wear a men's 42 suit and generally fit garments labeled "large." XL is an excellent close fit for me and XXL would be best over several clothing layers.. We've marked these down from their normal $120 to $98 through year's end. Quantities are limited.

Wish your favorite cyclist "Buona Fortuna" this holiday with our classic Sanctuary Medallion from the Madonna di Ghisallo Chapel. And, of course, don't forget a gift certificate so your recipient can make his/her own plans for a special set of wheels for the New Year.

Here's hoping this Season brings you fine riding and family time.

Wheel Building Tip No. 6 - Build Rears from Right to Left

[Note: this is #6 in a series of 20 tips to be published during 2009.]

For those of you that don't know the fastest way to build a rear wheel, here is how. This method is standard practice for many but still undiscovered by most. Building from right to left leverages the inconvenient truth of rear wheels to speed up the process. In fact, this method makes rears faster and easier to tension than fronts.

Step 1, begin by lacing your wheel in the normal fashion. Make sure each nipple is loose but tightened down the same distance as its same side neighbors. Step 2, now tighten your drive (right) side nipples evenly until they become snug. Continue until this side becomes tight, about 2/3 of finished tension. Make sure left side spokes are still loose.

Whoa, you may say, "the rim is now centered over the right hub flange and does not run true." Yes, but no worry, this is exactly what you want. The rim will wobble all over the place since there's no triangulation yet working. Open your truing stand indicators so the wheel can be rotated. Step 3, improve roundness (radial runout) by tightening and loosening drive side nipples ONLY.

This roundness session is the easiest ever because you can entirely ignore lateral runout. Just tighten and loosen nipples until the rim is perfectly round (not true). Use bold adjustments, like 1/2 turns, so the job is quick. Once the rim is perfectly round, we can move on.

In step 4, tighten non-drive spokes to pull the rim away from the cassette, towards the hub centerline. Completely ignore your drive side spokes. As you evenly tighten the non-drive nipples, use them to make the rim true. Such truing, using only one side and ignoring roundness, is lightening fast. The trick is getting the rim to center (use a dish tool to measure) AT THE SAME TIME as the drive side tensions reach perfection. Success depends on how tight you made the drive side in Step 2. Practice with a particular combination (rim, hub, spoke length) to make this part easy. Eventually, it can be super fast.

The advantages are two-fold. First, the process is quicker because roundess is perfected while ignoring side-to-side: half the number of spokes to adjust and much simpler, 2-D reasoning. Then, side-to-side is finished without attention to roundness, delivering the same speed benefit. The second advantage is that drive side nipples become tight without you having to turn them. Tightening a nipple to full tension is work, fighting thread and nipple-to-rim friction. This strategy allows you to tighten non-drive nipples to pull the drive side tight, and the non-drive nipples are twice as easy to turn.

Recognize the potential and give it a try. If you practice a few times, you'll never go back. I wish we could devise a similar shortcut for front wheels or symmetrically dished rears (like some fixies). Rear wheels are less strong structures than fronts due to their asymmetry. But that doesn't mean they should take longer to build. Quite the contrary!

A side note: since wood rims are so flexible, this method doesn't work so well. I still use a front-style of building for my wood rears. How about you?

Wood Shines at '09 Interbike

The 2009 Interbike trade show in Las Vegas ran over three days last week (Sep 23-25). As usual, there were wood rims sprinkled around the Show. As usual, the general media missed them entirely. However, those displays received loads of compliments.

Ortlieb USA showed an elegant SOMA city bike. Ghisallo Sport rims were laced to a Son generator front hub and a Chris King cassette rear. The spokes were tied and soldered for extra twinkle.

Cream and wood look darned good.

Boo Bicycles made its debut with bamboo frames from Vietnam. The workmanship was dazzling. Designs are by Nick Frey, recently graduated from Princeton. These are serious machines!. Two of his bikes wore Ghisallo rims. An unforgettable combination.

www.boobicycles.com

Ode to Spokes

Steel wire makes great spokes. Take it from someone who's made a career of making and celebrating steel spokes. The wheel needs of a bicycle are beautifully met with steel wire, and one glance at the cycling world offers ample proof. Let's examine why this is true.

Tried and True.

Why is steel wire so well suited to the bicycle wheel?

(1) High grade steel wire can support amazing tensile loads. Better spokes are good for over 600 lbs each, including the elbow and threads. The wire alone can hold 750 lbs per spoke, over 150,000 psi!

(2) Steel wire is very hard and can take lots of abuse, especially the motion and rubbing at the hub and where they cross.

(3) While wire can't support compression loads, they don't harm it. The wire just buckles harmlessly, ready for the return of tensile loading.

(4) Steel wire is very stiff. Working loads cause elongation of less than 1/3 of one percent of length. An elastic spoke would mean a rubbery feeling wheel. On a two wheeler, that means a wobbly ride.

(5) Steel has excellent fatigue properties. Within its elastic limits, the fatigue life is theoretically infinite. Just notice clocks whose very light springs and movements have been ticking for centuries.

(6) And, most importantly, steel wire is relatively cheap. Which is good, since more than 2 billion wire bicycle wheels are getting daily use on our planet. That's about 600,000 tons of steel!

(7) Unfortunately, however, thin steel wire is not torsionally rigid, so prone to windup when the nipples are turned. Thankfully, this windup is easily controlled.

What you may not know is that making cycling grade wire is seriously difficult. Standard grades lack consistency and purity. Variations in hardness, surface finish, and grain structure create weak spots. When spokes are pushed to their limits, small metallurgical problems become fractures.

The paucity of premium spoke makers is direct evidence of the challenges to making spoke-worthy wire. The elemental alloy must be extremely pure, practically pharmaceutical grade. No other wire customers, at least in the mass market, need such purity. So premium spoke wire must be drawn to order. It's not a typical industrial grade.

This pure metal is then drawn thinner and thinner to create the spokes we use. Each draw is a percentage reduction in diameter. The trick is knowing how large a percentage per draw, how fast to pull the wire through the die, what sort of lubricants to use, how often to change the dies, and what sort of annealing to perform after each draw. You see, steels, especially stainless, rapidly work harden. Annealing reduces the hardness induced by drawing. Without annealing (controlled heating and cooling) the wire becomes too brittle.

Even when you've perfected a strategy to make uber metal for spokes, there are plenty of sleepless nights and anxiety. The slightest missed step can produce thousands of unworthy spokes that broadcast hardship like a virus. Arguably, the metal standards applying to high grade spokes are more rigorous and less flaw tolerant, than the standards governing frame tubing or other metals in a bicycle. Spokes are in their own class for quality issues.

So now you'll understand if you catch me gazing absently at a pile of new spokes. I haven't lost my mind, I'm just adoring what I see. Can't really get enough face time with spokes. And, by the way, as long as you have a spoke cutter/threader, there are few safer places to put your money.