Aug
07
2008
We have discussed buying a fixed gear wheelset and mentioned that there is another way to go about the process of making wheels for your fixed gear conversion. Now we are going to discuss the process of wheelbuilding. This is a very delicate process that requires a lot of time to get it to work right. The payoff is great knowing that you have built your wheel by hand. There are two ways you can go about your wheelbuilding process. You can go the cheap way and use your old rims, or you can buy new rims and have a completely fresh wheelset.
Rims
The first step of this process is to get new rims. You may be able to use your old rims if you would like. Since rims are typically not in very good condition on a very old road bike, i would recommend buying new ones. You want to buy just the rims and not the whole wheel set for this. The most important part of this is getting rims that have the same number of spoke holes as your hub has. There are often great deals on rims on ebay:
Hub
On the hub, the big two things to look for are the width of the hub itself to fit onto your frame, and the number of spoke holes. The number of spoke holes have to match the number on the rim that you chose. Make sure you get a fixed gear hub, these are hubs that have dual directional threading.
Spokes
This is an item that you are probably best off buying at a local bike shop. Bring in your rims and hub and they should be able to hook you up. Also get the brass nipples to hook the spokes to the rim when your in there.
That concludes our post on wheelbuilding parts. On the next post we will show you how to go about building your wheel.
