I've been building a lot of wheels lately, which reminds me.....
Back in the old Advantage Cyclery days, I learned how to build wheels from Tom, the owner, as I have posted on before. The really cool thing about Advantage was that there was never a lack of stock for building up a set of hoops, if you wanted the practice.
Tom would routinely buy "close outs" of stock from bicycles to components. We ended up with a fair amount of Campagnolo 26 inch Thor mountain bike rims, which always seemed to build up really tough, strong mountain bike wheels. We also had a bunch of older Campy clincher road rims, and I built several sets of those up.
Tom was a Wheelsmith guy. Basically, you were either on the Wheelsmith train, or the DT Swiss train back then. Tom had all the Wheelsmith wheel building tools- the calculator, the whole bit. It was a nifty system to learn from, and I got on with it straight away. I never knew anything about DT Swiss stuff, or Sapim, or whatever flavor your wheel building tendencies go towards, because I was never exposed to that stuff, and well, I didn't ever see the need to get into anything else back then. Wheelsmith was working just fine, thank you very much.
Anyway, back to wheels. I built a set of road wheels in the waning days of Advantage Cyclery that were Campy Athena rims laced to Shimano hubs that I ended up putting on my in town commuter bike. I rode that bike in all sorts of nasty weather. Winter, rain, mud, you name it. They always stayed true, and I just kept throwing tires and brake pads on there until one fateful day.
I was just coming out of the alley way two blocks from my home on my way from work when....BOOM! It happened. I blew off about 40% of the rear rims side wall on the drive side and came to an instant halt. Good thing I was slowing down and only doing about 10mph!
It was kind of sad, because that was the last wheel set I had that I built at Advantage Cyclery. Oh well! I got all the goody outta that one!
Next week: More wheel stories on Bike Shop Tales..............
A small side note...Tom first only had Sapim and Union spokes from when he started out of his garage when only a supplier or two would sell to him. Back when Park-Pre and Monty at Island were the main vendors and only industry pals he had. Wheelsmith was the ticket when he was a REAL shop. I remember him dumping those Union spokes...boxes of em...
ReplyDeleteDid you ever use any of the matrix stash of rims? Those babies were not bad and cost only $5 each!! I remember when he bought a box of 1,000 spokes to go with all those rims...I thought that box was an anchor!! Tom was a go big or go home guy when it came to ordering. None of this lean inventory or just in time crap. He wanted any repair to be able to be done w/o special orders....the more obscure the better. Euclid shift and brake levers? No problem.
Sorry for the long comment- had a lot of fun back in the day down on main street.
OK last blast...little known fact-Tom was a big time TRI geek in the beginning....bad neon skin suit, profile tri-bars and fast-forward god awful seat post and all....God rest his colorful soul!
@Rich,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the "further back" story! I didn't know about that stuff, as that was before my time, but cool to know.
I did do up some matrix rims. they were a pretty stout rim.
I also did know Tom was a Tri-geek. It fit right in with his backround in swimming and his love of cycling.
Man, I love building wheels. Relaxing, meditative, with the satisfaction of a job well done.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately (or fortunately depending on your pov) everything is going to "system" wheels these days. Sure they're lighter, but are they repairable? And where's the love?
@Matt Maxwell: Good points! I too enjoy the process of building up a wheel. To me, it is an amazing thing that a hoop, a handful of wire, and some brass or alloy nuts can make something a rider can pound out thousands of miles on.
ReplyDeleteWheels are just so cool!
And yeah, the wheel builder's craft is getting overshadowed by the fancy pre-builts, but it isn't going to eliminate hand built wheels, I believe anyway.