GhostRider62

The last wheel I built on my lousy 35 year old minoura sans dials was a 28H x2 rear wheel to support 220 lbs. I built it the night before a 400Km ride. Maybe 12,000 miles or so ago and I have not had to take a spoke wrench to it. I think the most important thing is taking your time and tensioning up slowly. Never broke a spoke on any wheel I built. I can't say that for the ones I paid the dial experts to build for me.

philbob57

The Sunlite looks a lot like the Minoura I bought in the early '80s from Bike Warehouse. I wouldn't say it's better than the forks of a bike, but it certainly seemed more convenient. It allowed me to true wheels while watching TV. I built 4 wheels with it over 30-35 years, and the wheels served me well. The Minoura was more stable than the Sunlite looks.

At $84, I think the Sunlite overpriced by at least a factor of 2. Mine bit the dust when the bend in one of the arms got skewed - shouldn't happen for $84.

I still haven't seen an answer to the question, 'How can the innumerable good wheels have been built when precise sub-millimeter measurement of trueness wasn't possible?' That leaves me, too, with the conclusion that it's overkill.

I'm with those who think run out of 5/100ths of a mm is overkill.

Mad Honk 

Cyccommute,
I guess I have been doing it wrong for 35 years. No dial indicators (although I have then and could install them) but I build wheels on a regular basis and even did a fast tutor-al in my Paramount thread two weeks ago. I have taught wheel building at the collegiate level along with all of the overhaul processes. And throughout all of these years my wheels have held up just fine. I built wheels for Race Across America that had to withstand 60mph descents, and wheels for the Little 500 race as the race steward. They were all built with old school truing methods, and a few hundred using an old Roll Fast bike support converted to a truing stand. I guess I have just been lucky a lot!
I have been involved with Indy Car and the tolerances at 220 mph need to be much tighter, and they do use the computer technology to get the best wheel/tire balance needed to go that fast. But it is a different type of wheel and the difference is that tires cost $500 each and wheels cost about $5k, Nowhere near the prices bike riders would afford. Just my opinion here but fancy dial indicators and run-out is far overkill for a 60mph wheel. Ask my riders on RAAM if they ever had problems with my non-indicator wheels. Smiles, MH

adipe

when it comes to wheel building... you can stick a heavy rim for a heavy rider as your sloppy work is just sloppy and you don't care too much about weight - in which case you should work much more on the wheel for a light rim if the wheel is to withstand large dynamic loads.

the main point is this: someone who is able to achieve less than +/-6% tension variance while also having wheels with imperceptible runout is really after quality. resilience is one thing, low runout is another. and i want first and foremost resilience and wheels that have more up to +/-20% spoke tension variance will always be horrible to me.

you may care less about these facts. not saying that wheels cannot be resilient if they don't meet the criteria of high enough average tension and low tension variance. i'm just saying you would care less about having a heavy rim for heavier dynamic loads - as in margin of safety when it comes to taco and flat spots. flat spots can also happen because of excessive spoke tension (depending on spoke thickness and number of spokes) but that's another story.

it is nice to have wheels able to take more than 350kgf dynamic loads, right? that's because of higher than usual tension which can only make sense with very low spoke tension variance. wheels that have almost no runout too.

then again, i have a front wheel on an e-bike that has almost zero tension variance with runout that is ~0.5mm. you could hardly tell which spoke on the same flange has the lower tension when plucking them. i did aim to do just that for this particular front disc brake wheel on this heavy e-bike (22kg+) where resilience was of utmost importance and the largest weight is on the rear (motor rear hub and battery on top of it). it would be impossible to tell the wheel has runout when riding it, by the way. and spoke average tension on the disc side is about 140kgf on that front wheel. i built the wheel for myself and it just happens that i did not measure radial runout on every portion of the rim to balance out with spoke tension variance but spared my time to work on the more difficult rear wheel that was more messed up when i bought the bike. i also felt i could use this front wheel as an example to illustrate a point whenever i get to talk about these things and i would have the bike with me to show folks. so you may call this front wheel example a kind of sloppy work i did for myself (when it comes to runout). yet it is not really sloppy on a practical level.

dedhed

OP post seems to indicate occasional truing of existing wheels, not wholesale building of wheels.

I personally just use zip ties on the frame for an occasional touch up or check. On the "utility" bikes they just stay in place and get swung out of the way.

GhostRider62

Flat spots on rims?

Ain't had one of those since I switch to carbon rims

Old technology rims do bent and warp

3alarmer

...not to start up a big brouhaha about any of this, but I am curious as to where you came up with your ideas on bicycle wheel construction. To say that they are "idiosyncratic" in nature is to understate the obvious. For example (and this is only one example), the majority off the rims I lace up here do not come to me from the maker perfectly round. There is almost always (unless you can afford the really expensive rims) some runout from a perfect circle at the joint, which in olden times was mostly pinned, but is often welded and machined nowadays.

To accomplish a more or less circular wheel, centered on the axle, (what you are calling microscopic runout,) I am compelled to sloppily increase the tensions on the spokes in this area as I build my wheels. sometimes, as the wheel progresses, these tensions will even out a little with the rest. But that is not always the case. Sometimes, the best compromise I can accomplish in search of a round wheel is a couiple of sets at the rim joint that are tensioned higher than their fellows. It's physics, and manufacturing tolerances.

I think maybe you are confusing OCD with expertise. And I'm no expert, but I've seen (and experienced) enough OCD in my life to have a good idea how it works. Anyway, if you feel like replying, I'll read it. But a lot of the exchanges on teh Biekforooms that start out like this start to resemble piling on. And I have no wish to participate in that sort of activity.

I will say that your references to e-bike do not surprise me. E-bikers are an idiosyncratic group here, often in search of some minimal respect in the face of constant abuse.

cyccommute 

Now you are just showing how ignorant you are. Heavy riders...or people carrying a lot of baggage...puts the most stress on a wheel of any kind of load. If you make “sloppy wheels”, you’ll end up with a lot of broken spokes. Rims have very little to do with the strength of the wheel as the spokes carry the load (I know that’s controversial but it’s less out there then this guy).

Yea, yea, yea. We know your broken record schtick. It’s no more right the more time you repeat it. How about some data to back up your claims? I’ve got tough, durable wheels that last thousands (perhaps 10s of thousands) and they aren’t built to your exacting standards. That “wheels” as in multiple sets that are used on road bikes (not much stress there), mountain bikes (a fair bit more stress), touring bikes that carry my somewhat substantial weight plus extra weight just for giggles, and, finally, off-road touring that takes all the stresses on the wheel that are demanded by mountain bike and adds the stress of carrying a load.

Give us some “facts” to care about.

Want some oil and vinegar to dress that word salad? I have no idea what your point is here.

So what’s the moral of the story? That human hair variance on the run out isn’t needed?

cyccommute 

That the rims aren’t perfectly round is generally true for even the most expensive rims. I’ve broken apart lots of rims...they fit in the scrape bin better...and, to a rim, they all have pins at the joint. The pins, being straight, tend to make for a flat spot at the joint, even on expensive welded and machined rims. The pins are needed to hold the rim together for the welding.