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2025-02-17

Wheel Building Tips

There are plenty of guides around on bicycle wheel building, here's some bonus tips that I've found useful over the years.

• Measure thrice before ordering spokes.
• You don't need a fancy wheel building jig, a zip tie round the frame/fork can still lead to a decent wheel.
• Buy the fancy Torx/Squorx spoke nipples (eg. DT Swiss NPBH20150N0100) and a matching driver (eg. DT Swiss TLDT113). This makes the whole process 40% more pleasurable.
• A guy I worked had a side hustle building wheels for the cycle speedway(!) scene. He had a nice simple method that has yielded consistent results for me:
  1. Lace the wheel.
  2. Tighten each nipple until 2 threads are showing. Try and be as exact as possible here!
  3. Do up each nipple a quarter-turn.
  4. Repeat 3. until the spokes seem tight enough (compare by hand to anoyther decent wheel).
  5. True in the frame/jig.
  Consistency is key here, go valve-hole to valve-hole in the same direction. Don't stop half way through a rotation.
• In the truing stage, again, aim for consistency - tighten/loosen a quarter-turn in pairs, and only when the wheel is at a highpoint where it skims your gauge. Don't try do too much by feel.