That is a Spokey spoke wrench (my favorite too) with a DT logo stuck on it.

Thank you. Wish I could help, but this is not my first :trainwreck:

I find that "3-sided" spoke keys occasionally round nipples (oh - OK - I am a klutz and I round nipples with 3-sided keys).
4-sided ones are a bit slower but a more secure fit. This Pedros key is has dual options - 3 and 4.
3 is fast for initial spinning up, the 4 you have to slide up on onto the spoke in order to fit and remove. I have fewer disasters with these keys. hth


http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=290089

Merry Christmas & thanks to all for your replies.


I am going to read the documentation, but sometimes I find actually doing a task helps me to visualise what it needs better and learn more quickly.


FMB42, I'm all for taking appropriate safety procedures; Could you elaborate on how having a go is likely to put me in the hospital? Are you saying that something in the build process will cause this, or will it be as a result of riding the bike after I have worked on it?


Granted there were a few sharp spokes sticking out after I removed the hub and I was very careful to avoid impaling myself on them, and am going to order some eye protection before attempting again, but I would like to quantify just how dangerous this activity actually is.


Airburst, Yes I'm in the UK. Near York. There was a class at the local collage last year but i had to miss due to work commitments. I am keeping an eye out for the leaflet next time it comes round.


One important consideration is that I am trying to learn to repair MY bike, rather than ANY bike. So I don't need to know every conceivable type of component, just the ones I have and standardise on that. I have 2 of the Kelloggs Pro Tour bikes. One that is just a frame in pieces. So the Idea is to try to copy the setup of the first with the second and learn as I go. The wheel becoming 'out of true' just pushed it's way to the front as it is causing an urgent problem so I thought this would be a good place to start.


I do concede that the task of repairing this wheel may have beaten me, but I do think that I have learn't a lot from the process. I may well just buy a new set of wheels as people have said they should last a long time even on rough terrain hopefully I won't have wasted my money. I can then concentrate on getting a grounding on more basic bike maintenance before attempting the wheel building again.


I think the task I have of repairing a damaged wheel is much harder than just building a wheel with new components. The videos I viewed seemed straightforward, but they did not have to contend with removing an old freewheel and needing special tooling (other than the spoke wrench).

I would say the latter - it would be fairly hard to mess up a wheel badly enough to injure yourself, but I'm sure there are ways....

As for your location, that's not really close enough for me or someone else at my bike co-op to help teach you wheelbuilding, unfortunately.

Airburst, Thanks anyway.
I appreciate the offer even though it's not possible due to location.
Right country, just a couple of hundred miles too far away.

It's not just the wheel building that can be unsafe. It's also a matter of mounting the tires and installing the wheels correctly followed by adjusting and/or setting up the brakes as needed, etc. Unskilled/improper bicycle maintenance/repair can, without doubt, be dangerous.

I suspect that you don't understand this due to a general lack of bicycling experience (which, of course, is completely understandable). Most of us who have successfully replaced a bent rim did so sometime after we learned how to otherwise completely maintain/repair a bicycle (including complete disassembly and re-assembly, and very regular tire/tube repairs and replacement). But hey, we all need to start somewhere.

You also need to fully understand that "buckling" your rim(s) can cause a serious accident. You, apparently have been lucky so far. However, everybody eventually runs out of luck. Nobody in here wants you to needlessly risk an accident due to improper maintenance and/or a lack of understanding just why certain bicycle components (i.e. "parts") fail. The old "doing the same thing over-and-over while expecting a different result" very much applies in this case.

Again, just managing to replace your rims probably isn't going to solve your "buckling" problem unless you; A: determine exactly why they are failing, and B: take corrective measures to address the problem. These corrective measures could include tire and/or rim upgrades and/or a change in riding technique.

I learned bikes from the first Real Bike I ever had, an early 60s full-Campy Legnano. I simply took the whole thing apart. Everything. Down to the last bolt and bearing. I cleaned everything in solvent and put it all back together with appropriate grease and lube. Took me 3 full days. I was 17. I learned a lot about bikes. The bike rode beautifully when I was done. It wasn't easy and I needed some advice, but it was a good thing to have done. Main things are to label everything and not lose anything.

I know I should read the documentation and I do plan on doing so.

Yes I am naive in the area of bike mechanics, but I just don't buy it that everyone who ever learned to maintain their bike spent a couple of years reading the manuals and was too scared to touch a real bike for fear of serious injury. I totally appreciate that riding a bike that has been put together wrongly could result in harm, but so could riding a bike that has not been maintained due to lack of knowledge how to, so I figure on that score one cancels out the other and puts me no more in harms way than I was anyway.

If there was something in the actual building process that is extremely dangerous I would like to identify it before-hand and take appropriate precautions to avoid. So far I have only used a screwdriver, but if I had to use any more sophisticated tools I'd be sure to read the operating instructions first.

I'm planning on doing something similar to what carbonfiberboy described. Good tip to label everything I will make sure to do that.
Except in my case I have 2 identical bikes, one built and the other in pieces. I hope doing it this way won't lead to me getting too lost as I will be able to see the working one while fitting the same part on the other.

Everybody is naive when they start.
It's just that a beginner starts with the simpler things such as cleaning/lubing a chain, servicing wheel bearings etc. and works their way up to the more difficult tasks.

As an example, my first "foray" into wheel truing.
I flipped the bike over.
Rotated the wheel and observed where the rim was closest to the brake pads.
Tightened those spokes to pull the rim away them.
Repeat on the other side.
Switch back and forth multiple times.
Realize I have a horrendous "hop" in wheel because the rim had been "wallowed out" from impact and BOTH sides were closer to the pads.
EXPERIENCE and better tools allows me to inspect the rim first.

the impossible task you have now is, removing the freewheel from a hub with no wheel. normally, you put the freewheel tool in a bench vise, put the wheel on it, install the quick-release skewer to hold it together, and grab the wheel and turn. the wheel gives you a nice 35cm lever on each side. an old freewheel tends to be REALLY stuck on there, and requires a LOT of force to remove. It's nearly impossible to apply this much force to the hub without the wheel in place, without damaging the hub beyond usefulness.

That's why I suggested re-lacing the wheel about 15 posts ago.

I doubt I will be able to re-lace the wheel as I made too much of a mess of it when I removed and hadn't seen the post about taping together. No doubt an example where greater caution would have been of benefit.

I'm not sure if there is some partial re-lacing I could do to allow the removal of the freewheel, but to be honest it's getting too much of a leap for me to do if I need a special tool to do it. I bit off more than I could chew with the wheel building.

I think I will just bin the hub/freewheel & spokes. At least I have the rims and may be able to use them in the future.

So in terms of fixing my wheel I'd label my first attempt a dismal failure, but in terms of getting a better understanding of my bike it has been a shining success. I'll try my hand at something more basic next.

Thanks for all the help.

before you bin that hub, what model is it? I'm not familiar with that Raleigh Kellog Pro Tour, but if thats a Raleigh team style bike, it likely has VERY good quality old school parts on it. I had a 1970s Raleigh Professional Mark IV, and it was a gorgeous machine, Reynolds 531 double butted frame and forks, with beautiful lugwork, all Campagolo NR, tubular tires, etc. A truly sweet riding frame. 10 speeds back when that meant 2x5 :)

I binned it into the back of a car while trying to catch up with a girl (in another car) and bent the frame + forks :cry:

Use another wheel for the lacing pattern and start off by only screwing the nipples back on about 2 turns or less.

Even if you don't get it "perfect", you should be able to get it good enough to get the freewheel off.

I think a Raleigh Kellog Pro Tour is a 1980s midrange model. Like this one:

http://www.re-buy-cycle.co.uk/details.php?id=219

But OP will confirm.

ah, yeah. the couple pics I saw of similar years (88, 89), looked like suntour gearing, riveted chainrings.... so the hubs are probably nothing fancy like Dura-ace.

Yes, This is the one.
I'm not sure what make the hub is, I'll have a look and see if there are any markings on it in the daylight.

if its a Shimano hub, it will have FH-xxxx (rear freehub) or RH-xxxx (rear freewheel hub) or HB-xxxx (front hub) stamped on it somewhere, thats the model number.

edit: ah, that page said they are Mallaird hubs, which certainly will be for threaded on freewheels. not even remotely worth saving the hubs unless they are in perfect condition. ditto, if the spokes aren't stainless steel, but instead are chrome or zinc plated plain steel, the wheels are junk (if you're not sure, test with a small magnet. stainless is generally not at all or only very slightly magnetic, while plain steel spokes will definitely stick to a magnet).

That's great to know, but the OP needs to know the usual circumstance rather than the exception.

There's a bike co-op near you in York (http://www.bikerescueproject.org.uk/) that might be able to teach you a bit about wheel building. There's also Roger Musson (http://www.wheelpro.co.uk), who sells a first rate e-book on the subject. I use it myself.

Don't discount learning about fixing any bike. It's a lot of fun. And it isn't hard: bikes are simple machines, and easy to work on given the right tools. Again, check with your local bike co-op: at mine we teach these skills to people every day.

As for factory wheels, I think of them as "kits": all the parts are there, but they have to be re-tensioned before they're ready for real use. At the end of the day, hand-built wheels are pretty much always better than machine built wheels. Even your first wheel is likely to be better than the factory wheels that come with a bike, or the generic replacement wheels that shops routinely carry.

Just working on a wheel that is dispensable does nothing to insure you are learning something, and learning what not to do does not teach you how to do it properly.

It's not that difficult in the Internet age to find the correct term for a bike part. A Google search will yield thousands upon thousands of "bike part diagrams," and it would be difficult to find more than a couple of tutorials on wheel truing that did not at least mention cassette or freewheel.

Asking for help and then dismissing or distorting the advice given is itself not helpful. It does not take years to read Sheldonbrown or parktools sites regarding wheel building/truing, and certainly one needs a "hands-on" approach - but a thoughtful one. The responses you are receiving are a result of observation that you seem to be of the "dive in 1st, think about it later" approach.

Riding a bike that you wrongly think has been properly assembled and adjusted is indeed more dangerous that having a bike that you think may need maintenance, so one does not cancel out the other.

Bikes are a mechanical device, which means you cannot treat one like a picture on a jigsaw puzzle box in order to put together another. Ironically, learning properly how to work on one bike can apply to many, but no two can be treated as identical.

Carbonfiberboy does not explain how he accomplished his task, but I guarantee he did not just "simply" take the whole thing apart. Either he referenced a lot of information about how to disassemble, reassemble and adjust parts or he had the ability to understand what he was doing while he was doing it, with some minor checking of references. Not everyone has the latter ability, and although it can be learned to some degree, some people just have the right combination of observational abilities, logic and at least an intuitive understanding of physics and math as related to mechanical devices that some call "being good with one's hands."

Thanks 400trix That might be worth me following up on.

cny-bikeman, I think we will have to agree to disagree on some of that. I don't want to argue but I just don't agree with some of what you are saying.

I have already learnt a great deal from 'having a go' and asking questions and reading the responses, including your own which have taught me things and I am grateful for your contribution, however;

When I posted that I posted in a hurry just to basically say there was a part of the bike that was physically blocking the removal of the spokes and it was the part the chain went round. I figured that someone like yourself with more experience in this would be able to reason which part I was talking about.

I did not use the term freewheel then because I did know there were different types and at that time I was not sure which type I had and did not want to give incorrect information about the bike especially when it was not the function of that part which was causing the issue. It was merely physically in the way.

I have asked for help because I know I need it if I am to learn the skills to do this, but it does not mean that I will not question and filter the advice I receive and follow everything verbatim.

I know for sure that riding a bike that has been improperly maintained is dangerous. A bike crash is a bike crash regardless of it's cause and it is wrong to say that the outcome of that crash would be greater if it were caused by improperly attempted maintenance as opposed to insufficient maintenance.

In any case I am not going to just fiddle with it and then ride off. I think that appropriate post maintenance safety checks are essential especially if I have done the work, but even when the work has been done by a professional who is far less likely to have screwed things up I would prefer not to just trust them blindly and hope they could do it by magic. The same safety checks should apply regardless of who did the work.

In such a way conformance to the tests is all that matters. Not how much experience the person has.

OP; All else aside, I suspect most of the tech help and tech ideas offered so far are basically leading you down a path of experiencing more things that you don't likely know how to do.

To get started to solve the actual problem, recommend posting 3 pictures;
1) Pix of the last wheel that buggered up on you. Take the pix looking down on the rim from a bit of an angle with the axle and cogs behind and to the side of the rim... get the entire wheel in the same pix
2) Pix of your bike and include the brand, size and model
3) A picture of yourself standing next to your bike.

With those three pix we can begin to help solve the root issue vice recommending you spend to get one of our favorite tool-toys...

ksisler, you could be right.
I will try to get some pictures posted when I can.