Bikes Not Bombs Wheel Building Classes

WHEEL BUILDING COURSE
February 17th – March 17th
each Tuesday 8-10 pm (5 sessions)

The first session is a consultation where we’ll help you pick out and purchase hubs, rims, and spokes for your new wheelset ($60-80 for rims, $64 for spokes and $50-100 for hubs; all students receive a 10% discount on all parts bought for the class, including any tools you want for home). We’ll also cover some wheelbuilding theory and time permitting do spoke length calculations. The second session will focus on lacing both wheels. The third and fourth sessions will focus on tensioning the spokes, and lacing the second wheel. The final session will give students time to focus on finishing their wheels and to discuss other aspects of wheelbuilding.

Building a bicycle wheel is like tuning a piano – it takes care and patience and a little art to balance the tensions, and when it is in tune it is a beautiful thing! For a wheel to be perfectly round, the tension on each spoke must be adjusted and balanced, each slightly different to account for the flex response of the rim. These days most wheels are built by machines, which do a fine job, but don’t have nearly the sophistication of a human set of hands and eyes. A hand-built wheel is substantially more durable and will last longer, ride smoother, and need truing less often, but they get expensive when you pay a mechanic for the labor time involved. When you can build your own wheels, you can choose the quality and type of each component (hub, spokes, and rim) and you get high-quality technology for cheap because you don’t have to pay for labor! Learning to build wheels will also give you the skills to understand problems in used wheels and to true them by adjusting spoke tensions.

The cost for the full course is $120, and you must enroll in advance. Call the bike shop at 617-522-0226 to pay by credit card over the phone, or stop by the shop. You can send a check, but note that we’ll reserve a space for you only AFTER we receive payment, and classes fill quickly. Questions? Contact [email protected] or talk to Charlie Schubert, our Bike Shop Service Manager.

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