Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
Hours to build up a new build can be a few or many depending on complexity and if you are building the wheels. I might spend an hour truing up one wheel after I have gotten it laced together. I know that I put more than eight hours (counting wheel building) on each of my touring bikes, but on my last tour I only needed to make one adjustment once and that took less than a minute. On the tour before that I never had to make any adjustments. The point is that if you spend some quality time to do it right the first time, it pays off in the long run when you have a trouble free bike on a tour. So, take your time, the goal is to have a trouble free bike and not to be able to brag how fast you can wrench.
Yes, the goal is to have a trouble free bike. But the amount of "trouble" you have after the build depends on the mechanic and not on how long (or how short) the time of the build is. My 8 hour build was...and is...trouble free 7 years and around 12,000 miles later.
My point on the inordinate amount of time people take with bicycle builds is that at some point they are obsessing and fiddling rather than getting the job done. Using your wheel as an example, taking an hour to true the wheel seems excessive. Starting with new parts and a good building technique, you shouldn't have to do that much truing a new wheel. If you use old parts, it might take a little longer but an hour would still be excessive in my experience...even for a first wheel.
I understand that jargo432 is waiting on tools but sometimes you don't need specific tools. Setting a star nut is easier with the proper tool but you
can set a star nut quite nicely with just an allen bolt and a hammer. You just have to be careful to drive it straight or straighten it out properly if it starts to go in crooked.