I'm pretty new to wheel building, but I'd like to get into it. One step closer to frame building.

I do a lot of singlespeed mountain biking and I commute on a fixed gear. I'd like to build up a new rear wheel for my singlespeed and some day I'll need to replace the rear wheel on my track bike. I've heard talk about singlespeed or fixed gear wheels not needing to be dished. Is this true? If so, why?

Is there a good wheel building tutorial or guide specifically for singlespeed or fixed gear wheels?

Some do, some don't, depends on the flange spacing, most won't have much dish, flip-flop hub shouldn't have any as a rule. There's nothing really specific about singlespeed wheels.

Because the freewheel/cassette takes up so much space on a normal axle, the wheel must be pushed to the side quite a bit so that it still lines up straight in the frame.

Since track/ss wheels have only one cog, little or no dishing is required. In my experience, other than a true track bike, there will always be some dishing required. And with fixed/ss conversions, the dishing is on the opposite side of the wheel of the usual freewheel dish.

How much dishing is required? As much as is needed to get the mounted wheel in the center of the bike frame. When I do a conversion, I will do all the respacing and chainline work first, and then mount the wheel in the frame (with the tire off, so I can get good lube to all parts of the nipple) and dish away. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of movement, especially when you go from the radical dish for a freewheel to a reverse dish to make the chainline on a conversion works. Do not be surprised if you end up moving it so much that you have to file down the spoke ends that are now sticking out of the nipples. If you don't file them down, you will blow the tube.

jim

You'll need to look at the hub specs to see the flange distance from the center of the hub. This will tell you how much dish is needed.

+1 that flipflops generally have symmetrical flanges.

Gerd Schraner seems to say that if you have a dishing tool and a properly spaced axel on your hub then all you need do is dish according to the spacing between the axel and the feeler on your dishing tool.

Here is a great tutorial on wheel building https://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

This is how I learned.

Actually, you need to go with the locknuts, not the axle end. But otherwise, that's what you need.

Point. Downside is that I don't have and can't afford a Var dishing tool. So I make do with a Park WAG-3 (since the only redeaming quality of the WAG-4 is that you can dish a wheel with the tires still on) and measuring from the axle. Though this does give me a great idea for a tool mod. I could mount some kind of sleeve at the end of the WAG-3s feeler screw (god that sounds dirty) so it could fit around the axel and touch the locknut.

I made my dish tool in 5 minutes out of some scrap plywood. No fancy dish tools needed