Perverse wheel build

The other day I wanted to put aluminum rims onto an old cheap road bike I
have, to allow it's use as a rain bike. I had found a couple of wheels in
the garbage earlier with rims in OK condition, same number of spoke holes,
only smaller diameter than the original steel rims (622mm bead seat versus
27" I guess).

After checking that the brakes would still work, I laced a new rim onto
the existing front hub and spokes, and to compensate for the too-long
spoke lengths I changed the lacing pattern from 3x to 4x. For the rear
wheel I was able to use the spokes from the garbage wheel and lace them
onto the old hub with the same pattern, although I couldn't get the valve
hole between parallel spokes.

No problems getting either wheel round, true, tensioned or dished, and I'm
very curious to see how these wheels hold up over time. It's a bit of a
hobby of mine to go out riding on garbage nights and salvage bikes people
are throwing out, then either fix them up or cannibilize them to fix up
other bikes, the goal being to make as many bikes safe and useable as
possible with no new parts (OK so I use new oil, grease, and bearings..).
It's amazing but I usually find many bikes and bike parts, to the point
where I reject about 50% of the usable parts I find because it's too much
stuff to move. I don't really have any reason for doing this other than I
like building bikes and don't like paying for stuff to do it with.
Sometimes I trade the finished bikes away to people I know for other
things, and sometimes I ride them. My garage is so full of wheels, tires,
frames, whole bicycles and other parts it's becoming a problem.

(and oh yeah the bike brakes a lot better now :-)

Benjamin Lewis said:

Jobst, you may want to avert your eyes.
I found myself with a 28 hole rim and a 36 hole hub, and decided,
against my better judgment, to build a wheel with them.
diagram: http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel.pnghttp://ww-
w.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel.png photo: http://www.cs.sfu.c-
a/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel3b.jpghttp://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/perso-
nal/bike/wheel3b.jpg
Spokes lengths were calculated using equations from The Wheel Book,
except for the calculations for spoke angles (T in the book) which I had
to figure out myself (they're just linear combinations of the angle
between rim holes and the half-angle between hub holes). Four different
lengths were used, shown in different colours in the first image (spokes
on other side of wheel shown in grey).
The rim is a used Mavic Reflex. It is a socketed double walled rim, but
anodized and with welded joint.
Spokes are DT straight gauge. I was trying to do this cheaply, and the
LBS where I bought them didn't have butted spokes in the lengths I
needed anyway. In fact, they only had spokes of even length, and my
calculations called for odd lengths after rounding down. In the end I
got two of the lengths rounded quite a bit down, and the other two
rounded slightly up. It worked okay.
Hub is some Shimano high flange that I found used; needless to say I
broke the wheel building rule against re-lacing a hub in a different
pattern. Furthermore, I couldn't figure out any lacing pattern that
didn't involve any radial spokes, so I ended up with four of these (two
per side). I thought perhaps it wouldn't be quite as bad if I left the
holes in the hub adjacent to these spokes vacant. Bearing races appeared
to be in excellent condition; I replaced the shot cones and bearings for
a paltry sum.
The build wasn't too hard, especially after I applied little coloured
coded pieces of masking tape near the holes in the hub and rim so I
wouldn't get confused while lacing the wheel. I couldn't do normal
evening of tension by tone due to the varying lengths, but I made sure
that spokes of the same length rang at the same pitch.
This wheel now lives on my fun-around-town-fixie, so I don't expect it
to ever have much weight on it.
Comments or criticisms other than "that's a dumb idea; it'll break and
you'll kill yourself" or "next time fork over the extra cash and do it
right" welcome 🙂
In unrelated news, my hair is now blue: http://www.cs.sfu.c-/http://www.cs.sfu.c-
a/~bclewis/personal/photos/misc/bhair2b.jpg
If you look closely you may notice where I singed part of my right
eyebrow in a barbecue incident.
--
Benjamin Lewis
On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague: "This isn't right. This
isn't even wrong." -- Wolfgang Pauli

Interesting project. I keep many rims, spokes, and hubs around. I am not
ready to go for the unconventional methods you employed because I want
something that will be reliable. I encourage people to follow "the
Bicycle Wheel" principles: "It may be futile to suggest the ordinary but
let me try to persuade you that just to build conventional standard 36
spoke wheel is not a trivial task if a durable wheel is your goal. ....
Your true contribuion is to build conventional wheels exceptionally
well." a quote from Jobst Brandt's book I think some of the marketing
hyped wheels that are out there because wheelsmiths aren't making their
contributions and/or their contributions are undervalued/misunderstood.

--

Benjamin Lewis said:

Jobst, you may want to avert your eyes.

Quoted message said:

I found myself with a 28 hole rim and a 36 hole hub, and decided, against
my better judgment, to build a wheel with them.

Quoted message said:

diagram:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel.png
photo:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel3b.jpg

Commonly known as "Crowsfoot" spoke pattern described in
"the Bicycle Wheel".

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Interesting project. I keep many rims, spokes, and hubs around. I am not
ready to go for the unconventional methods you employed because I want
something that will be reliable. I encourage people to follow "the
Bicycle Wheel" principles: "It may be futile to suggest the ordinary but
let me try to persuade you that just to build conventional standard 36
spoke wheel is not a trivial task if a durable wheel is your goal. ....
Your true contribuion is to build conventional wheels exceptionally
well." a quote from Jobst Brandt's book

Yes, I think that's excellent advice. On the other hand, I often like
doing things in unusual ways with what I have at hand, even if it is less
than ideal -- and I suspect this wheel will still be more durable than many
off-the-shelf wheels.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.
-- Walt Kelly

jobst brandt said:

Benjamin Lewis said:

Jobst, you may want to avert your eyes.

Quoted message said:

I found myself with a 28 hole rim and a 36 hole hub, and decided,
against my better judgment, to build a wheel with them.

Quoted message said:

diagram:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel.png
photo:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel3b.jpg

Commonly known as "Crowsfoot" spoke pattern described in
"the Bicycle Wheel".

Yes, almost half of it is anyway. I'm not sure what the lacing pattern for
the other spokes (magenta and blue in the diagram) should be called. It's
not really 2-cross, in the normal usage of the term. Perhaps "two
trailing, two leading?" The pattern on the reverse side is the same,
rotated by 90 degrees.

The diagram does not show inbound vs. outbound spokes, or orientation of
spoke crossings.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.
-- Walt Kelly

Benjamin Lewis said:

Quoted message said:

Jobst, you may want to avert your eyes.

Quoted message said:

I found myself with a 28 hole rim and a 36 hole hub, and decided, against
my better judgment, to build a wheel with them.

Quoted message said:

diagram:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel.png
photo:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel3b.jpg

Averting his eyes, Jobst replied:

Quoted message said:

Commonly known as "Crowsfoot" spoke pattern described in
"the Bicycle Wheel".

Actually, not exactly. The classic crowsfoot uses spokes in groups of
3, one radial and two semi-tangent in each group.

Benjamin's setup alternates groups of 3 with groups of 4, with the 4s
being all semi-tangent.

Sheldon "Looks Like Fun!" Brown
+----------------------------------------------+
| My mind is aglow with whirling, transient |
| nodes of thought careening through a cosmic |
| vapor of invention! --Mel Brooks |
+----------------------------------------------+
Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041
http://harriscyclery.com
Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com

In article <[email hidden]>,

Benjamin Lewis said:

Jobst, you may want to avert your eyes.

I found myself with a 28 hole rim and a 36 hole hub, and decided, against
my better judgment, to build a wheel with them.

diagram:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel.png
photo:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/bike/wheel3b.jpg

Quoted message said:

Comments or criticisms other than "that's a dumb idea; it'll break and
you'll kill yourself" or "next time fork over the extra cash and do it
right" welcome 🙂

In unrelated news, my hair is now blue:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~bclewis/personal/photos/misc/bhair2b.jpg

If you look closely you may notice where I singed part of my right eyebrow
in a barbecue incident.

You're just a parade of bad personal judgment!

--
Ryan Cousineau, [email hidden] http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine/wiredcola/
President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

I found two more bikes in the trash tonight.

One of them, a mid-range looking ladies' Raleigh road bike, has the nicest
fenders and rack I've ever seen on it. Score.

Jacobe Hazzard said:

I found two more bikes in the trash tonight.

What do you do with surplus bikes? My enthusiasm for rescuing bikes
is beginning to wane, due to a lack of anything to do with them. I
did recently find some people to take some off my hands, but that
will only get rid of a few...

Quoted message said:

One of them, a mid-range looking ladies' Raleigh road bike, has the nicest
fenders and rack I've ever seen on it. Score.

Ah yes, always good to find ladies with nice racks...

Er, anyway, I can't seem to find any bikes with racks, which stinks,
because I'd like to put some free racks on some of my bikes.
--
Rick Onanian

Rick Onanian said:

Jacobe Hazzard said:

I found two more bikes in the trash tonight.

What do you do with surplus bikes? My enthusiasm for rescuing bikes
is beginning to wane, due to a lack of anything to do with them. I
did recently find some people to take some off my hands, but that
will only get rid of a few...

If you've run out of friends who need bicycles, you could possibly try
selling them or donating them to charities.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

One of them, a mid-range looking ladies' Raleigh road bike, has the
nicest fenders and rack I've ever seen on it. Score.

Ah yes, always good to find ladies with nice racks...

Er, anyway, I can't seem to find any bikes with racks, which stinks,
because I'd like to put some free racks on some of my bikes.

I just wish I could find some bikes *with wheels*! At the moment I have
three scavenged frames lying around, but only one wheel. The wheels I do
find almost invariably need to be re-spoked, making spokes one of the more
expensive parts of the salvaged bike, along with brake pads and tires. (I
suppose I could try to re-use the old corroded non-SS spokes, but I hate
building wheels with these, especially when mixed with new replacements for
broken spokes).

--
Benjamin Lewis

Thyme's Law:
Everything goes wrong at once.

Rick Onanian said:

What do you do with surplus bikes? My enthusiasm for rescuing bikes
is beginning to wane, due to a lack of anything to do with them. I
did recently find some people to take some off my hands, but that
will only get rid of a few...

Haha good question. I'm leaving town in a couple days and I have to figure
out how to hide 10 bikes in my garage so that it doesn't look like a bike
shop. That answer your question?
I give a few of them away, sometimes I ride a different bike every day of
the week, sometimes they just sit around, destined for greater things.
Mostly it's building them I enjoy, finding creative ways to solve problems
using only trash. Doing things you're not supposed to and having the
results defend themselves. I'm sure that having a garage full or working
bikes can't be a bad thing, one day they'll all find owners.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

One of them, a mid-range looking ladies' Raleigh road bike, has the
nicest fenders and rack I've ever seen on it. Score.

Ah yes, always good to find ladies with nice racks...

Er, anyway, I can't seem to find any bikes with racks, which stinks,
because I'd like to put some free racks on some of my bikes.

Yeah it has full coverage stainless steel fenders with solid mounting
hardware and cool stripes down them. The rack is also very solid, looks to
be steel maybe and MUCH better made than the aluminum racks I break every
season. I find a lot of cool bits in the garbage, some recent things of
note: A front wheel with working Sturmey-Archer Dynohub; a set of Biopace
Chainrings; a high end Miele road frame that after preliminary inspection
appears to be in excellent condition; the hugest centre-pull brake
calipers I've ever seen (used in a wheel-size conversion project); a
kryptonite lock with key(?); a bag of kevlar beaded mountain tires, like
new; etc etc. Also last night (when I wasn't actively hunting mind you,
just riding around) I found a nice skateboard that a friend of mine skated
home on.

I am a little dismayed by the things that get thrown out these days, but
at the same time I notice there are a lot of other people like me (some of
them with flatbed trucks) who are out every garbage night helping
themselves. Every bike I rescue is one less bike in a landfill and
hopefully one less department store cheapie that gets manufactured.
Speaking of which is there any way to reclaim old steel or non-eyleted
aluminum rims as scrap? I have a lot of them, but they wont go in the
recycling bin and the scrap yard I talked to didn't want to deal with them
either.

Benjamin Lewis said:

I just wish I could find some bikes *with wheels*! At the moment I
have three scavenged frames lying around, but only one wheel. The
wheels I do find almost invariably need to be re-spoked, making
spokes one of the more expensive parts of the salvaged bike, along
with brake pads and tires. (I suppose I could try to re-use the old
corroded non-SS spokes, but I hate building wheels with these,
especially when mixed with new replacements for broken spokes).

Not only do I find bikes with wheels, but I often find wheels lying out
alone. Don't ask me why. One day I happened upon a bike with two wrecked
wheels in the trash, and was told by the occupant of the house that his
roomate had left all his stuff behind and now he was throwing it all away.
The next day, riding along and thinking how I could ride that bike if I
got some 700c or 27" wheels what should I happen upon but two 27" wheels
needing only a little grease! I'm usually thinking "hmm, I could slap a
new rim on that and use it on bike x" or "that rim would go great on bike
y's front wheel" or "that hub looks like it's in great condition". I also
re-use spokes a lot, although it's definitely more convenient to have a
complete set than do it piecewise (see my original post in this thread).
After a while you start developing a feel for what you can get away with.
I know that in many cases after I've lubed the nipples, and tensioned and
trued and stress relieved the wheels, they are more durable than they were
when they were newly machine built. Certain experiments have resulted in
broken spokes (IE inside and outside spokes should never be swapped).

Hint: a *real* bike salvager will save working nipples, even when the
spokes are broken.

Jacobe Hazzard said:

Also last
night (when I wasn't actively hunting mind you, just riding around) I
found a nice skateboard that a friend of mine skated home on.

I just got a phone call from the above mentioned friend, who told me that
after we parted ways while he was skating home he also found another bike.
It was a mountain bike with straps, in good condition, and only needing
new brake pads up front he says. I think we should open a used bike shop.

Jacobe Hazzard said:

Hint: a *real* bike salvager will save working nipples, even when the
spokes are broken.

I guess I'm not a real bike salvager 🙂 At less than C$2, I have no problem
with springing for a set of new nipples. I did this on a wheel I recently
restored, which had been using nipples for three different wrench sizes!

--
Benjamin Lewis

Thyme's Law:
Everything goes wrong at once.

"Ryan Cousineau" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

First:

Quoted message said:

You're just a parade of bad personal judgment!

Second:

Quoted message said:

Ryan Cousineau, [email hidden]

http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine/wiredcola/

Quoted message said:

President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

Heh :-)

And where is Fabrizio these days? I need to know what colours are
in before doing summer bike part shopping!
--
Mark South
Citizen of the World, Denizen of the Net
<<Tiens! Ce poulet a une grenade!>>

Jacobe Hazzard said:

season. I find a lot of cool bits in the garbage, some recent things of
note: A front wheel with working Sturmey-Archer Dynohub; a set of Biopace
Chainrings; a high end Miele road frame that after preliminary inspection
appears to be in excellent condition; the hugest centre-pull brake
calipers I've ever seen (used in a wheel-size conversion project); a
kryptonite lock with key(?); a bag of kevlar beaded mountain tires, like

Holy [censored]! You must be dumpster diving at bike shops...I ought to do
that. I mostly just curb-shop.

Quoted message said:

I am a little dismayed by the things that get thrown out these days, but
at the same time I notice there are a lot of other people like me (some of
them with flatbed trucks) who are out every garbage night helping

I drive a pickup, and put on lots of miles regardless of curb
shopping; driving a truck sure makes it easy! 😉

Quoted message said:

themselves. Every bike I rescue is one less bike in a landfill and
hopefully one less department store cheapie that gets manufactured.

Those are both great reasons to rescue. Thank you for reminding me.
I skipped a pair of bikes yesterday, one of which may have been
pretty good. Plus, I keep forgetting that I'm looking for a 110 BCD
crank...so I should at least grab every bike I see and just dump any
I don't want until I find it.

Quoted message said:

Speaking of which is there any way to reclaim old steel or non-eyleted
aluminum rims as scrap? I have a lot of them, but they wont go in the
recycling bin and the scrap yard I talked to didn't want to deal with them
either.

Flatten them into blocks as best you can, sort them by material,
save them, and bring batches of them to scrap.

A pre-destroyed rim rotting in the landfill doesn't bother me so
much.
--
Rick Onanian

I think it looks cool! !t deserves a place on Sheldon's site, at least.
You will let us know how it works, won't you?

- -

"May you have the wind at your back.
And a really low gear for the hills!"

Chris Zacho ~ "Your Friendly Neighborhood Wheelman"

Chris'Z Corner
http://www.geocities.com/czcorner

Rick Onanian said:

What do you do with surplus bikes? My enthusiasm for rescuing bikes
is beginning to wane, due to a lack of anything to do with them.

http://deadbabybikes.org/bikes.htm
http://dclxvi.org/chunk/meet/outside/index.html
http://cyclecide.com/photos/2003_fort_collins/

There is *always* something to do with surplus bikes. Even if it is
not immediately recognizable as a good idea.

Chalo Colina

Chris Zacho said:

I think it looks cool! !t deserves a place on Sheldon's site, at least.
You will let us know how it works, won't you?

Just as well as any other wheel I've ridden so far, and better than many 🙂
Thanks to Jobst's advice it's well-tensioned, stress-relieved, true, and
staying that way.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Thyme's Law:
Everything goes wrong at once.