Hi Jerry!

Thank you for your reply and for your excellent contributions to the thread,

Good news, I have my Swift up and running, just in time for the poor weather conditions that have been forecast.

Borrowed my neighbours pressure gauge, I only had the BA’s pumped up to 20psi, now got them at 70psi, I love a firm ride.

The hub is centered correctly between the dropouts but the wheel itself appears to be built over to one side by several millimetres and this has been confusing me. I have no wheel building experience or apparatus and arrived at this conclusion after endless measurements with steel rulers from wheel to frame and dropouts. Maybe I can slacken off all the spokes half a turn at a time on one side of the wheel and then tighten the other side the same.

I added a couple of links to the chain so I can get the hub off. The hub needs some attention, it’s not turning too smoothly and the sprocket is loose but I have nothing to tighten it up with at the moment.

Not great but it still goes quite nicely and this set up will be good enough to get me through the winter months.

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The wheel reminds me of one of the trips I made on my racing bike with no luggage except for a little musette bag slung over one shoulder.

I had ridden across Venezuela from the airport and had just gone over the border into Colombia on my way to Bogotá, a wonderful ride that I’ve done several times. I went into Cucuta looking to change some money and was stationary on a corner when a bus knocked me off and it ran over back wheel just nipping the edge of the rim enough to break it.

I thought that that was the end of my trip and didn’t think the bus driver would have even noticed let alone stop.

But within seconds I was surrounded by dozens of people including a policeman. My immediate concern was that somebody might try to take advantage of the situation before I could regain my composure, steal my bag or something off the bike.

But to my amazement the policeman ordered all the people off the busy bus and put my bicycle inside. I was told to get inside too and the driver was instructed to get my bicycle sorted out at his own expense and to take as long as was needed until I was satisfied.

We found a shop and arranged to have a wheel built around my Mavic hub and I went back the next morning to collect it. The wheel was a bit heavy but I was grateful that I would be able to carry on with my trip.

Problem was that when I got back to where I was staying and tried to put it on the bike it wouldn’t fit through the brake blocks. It took me a few seconds to realise that the wheel had been built up alarmingly off centre. I was advised to go back into Venezuela and get it redone, which I did and had nothing but trouble with it the rest of the trip. But I was just grateful that I was able to ride out the whole route.

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Hi noteon, please post some pics!