Wheels & Tires

Page contents -

Wheelbuilding.
Low-budget wheel truing stand.
Tying & soldering spokes.
Tire Tips.
Studding ice tires.
 

Wheelbuilding.  How to build and maintain your own wheels, by Mike T.  (last update - May 18th  2008)

The following tips have helped and encouraged many people to try wheelbuilding for the first time.  Of this I am proud and I get e-mails from people thanking me for giving them the incentive to give it a try.  No-one ever regrets taking their first steps.

There is nothing mystical about wheelbuilding – all it takes is a minor amount of equipment, some written instructions and some patience along with a willingness to learn. You will feel very proud of yourself when you take your first ride on your first set of wheels.

This information page is dedicated to helping you build your first wheelset without fancy special equipment.  If you had to buy $2-300 worth of tools to build your first set, you probably wouldn't do it.  Don't listen to those who say you can't build good and accurate wheels using my tips and minimum equipment.  Oh sure, if you're going into semi production then good equipment is more of a benefit, but this FAQ is not about that.  It's about the average guy who wants to try wheelbuilding and who might eventually want to build himself and a buddy one or two sets of wheels per year or replaces the odd rim here & there.  Of course it's good for on-going wheel maintenance and repair also.

I love this quote from professional wheelbuilder Gerd Schraner's book "The Art of Wheelbuilding" - "It is always the wheelbuilder who makes a good job of truing wheels, not the truing tools.  It is therefore not necessary to have the latest high-tech, sophisticated toy to attain a high quality wheel.  I learned how to true wheels using an old bicycle fork and my fingernail to measure misalignment".

I’ve built many of wheels for myself and friends over the past forty six  years. I won’t tell you how to actually do the lacing and truing as that is well covered by people with far more typing time than I have. There are references at the end of this section for the sites that will help you with the actual lacing and other things.  What I offer you is motivation plus many tips that you may not find anywhere else.

The simple equipment that I use is:

Your front fork and bike frame to use as a truing stand.  (New!  See below for how to make your own low-budget, high-efficiency wheel truing stand.)
A pair of simple inside calipers to check dishing (see pic below).
A spoke wrench of the correct size.  Get a good one here.  Cheap ones will ruin your nipples ;o)  See below.
An old Phillips screwdriver with two webs ground off (see pic below).
A 4" piece of old spoke (the threaded end) or the sharpened end of a Qtip.
Grease or oil.  Anything will do.
Small tin of Permatex Anti-Seize Compound. (get at an auto parts store)
Plastic tipped hammer.
Long punch (6-8" drift punch)
Not much in the way of expensive dedicated wheelbuilding tools eh?

            What you don’t need -  wheel stand, dishing gauge, spoke tension meter, "spoke prep", electric or manual "nippledrivers".

Get a good spokewrench whatever you do as it will last a lifetime.  Cheap ones will round off the nipples quickly.  Park makes a good one but my fave is now the Unior 1630 (see below).  Get the right size for your spoke nipples.  The black Park is for 14g (the most common) nipples.

  Here is my hi-tech Nipple Driver.  It's an old worn-out cheap Phillips screwdriver with two webs ground off.  It's got a piece of tape applied so that you can easily see and count the number of turns.  It's truly hi-tech as it has two gears - high & low - twirl the shaft or twirl the handle between finger & thumb to vary the gearing.  Beat that for a dollar.  I should patent the damn thing as it works perfectly.

 

Spoke information - Spokes and spoke gauges.  You will likely be confused over what make of spokes to buy, what length and what thickness (gauge).  I'll be brief.  Other sources will be more wordy.
                        Makes - DT, Sapim and Wheelsmith make the most popular ones.  They're all too equal to worry about any differences.  I like                         Sapim because they're good and my buddy imports them - www.ThorUSA.com.  Lance uses them. 
                        World champions and record breakers use them.
                        Length - You must use a spoke length calculator.  Spoke lengths depend on a few factors -

Rim ERD (effective rim diameter).  This is obtained from the manufacturer or some spoke calculators will have a listing chart or you can measure it yourself and the spoke calculators sometimes show you how to measure it.  It is NOT the rim diameter that you normally know (700c, 26" etcetera) but a number like "542".  It is the diameter distance from one nipple seat to one directly across from it.
Hub dimensions (flange diameter, flange spacing).  Obtain from the same sources as the ERD.
Spoke crosses - are you using 3x, 2x, radial?  It makes a big difference.

When you use a spoke calculator you will probably end up with between two and four different lengths of spokes recommended for your wheels.  This is because of the spacing of the hubs' flanges from the center of the axle.  Flanges are spaced differently to accommodate gear cassettes and disc brake rotors.  Many times you can round the measurements up or down to combine two or more lengths of spokes.  For example, if you get lengths of 261.6 and 262.4, round them both to 262.  We need to be within 2mm when choosing spoke lengths and the closer we do this rounding, the better.  For example, a length of 260.7 should be taken down to 260 and not up to 262.
Ideally, when spokes are the correct length and at the correct tension the end of the spoke will be just at the top of the nipple.  We have a leeway of about 1mm in either direction before we run into problems.
Most spokes are only stocked in 2mm increments and in even numbers.

                        Some spoke calculators are listed at the end of this section. Roger Musson's is the best and if you use the '0 decimal place' setting, the calculator does the rounding up or down of the length numbers for you.  Ingenious eh?

Gauge - there are two main types - plain gauge (equal thickness all the way down) and double butted (thinner in the middle).
    Plain gauge - cheaper, easier to build with than butted spokes (not as much twisting or "wind-up" when turning nipple).  You'll see thicknesses of 14g (or 2.0mm) or 15g (1.8mm).
    Double butted - more money and a little harder to build with (the thinner middle twists a bit).  You'll see thicknesses of 14/15/14g (2.0/1.8/2.0mm).  DBs absorb shock better and build a more forgiving wheel.  There are some spokes with extreme butting (very thin mid section) - spokes like DT Revolution and Sapim Laser.  PLEASE don't use these for your first few wheelbuilds as they twist like crazy and take lots of skill to identify and remove the twist.
    Bladed spokes - some of the very high end spokes are bladed (flattened).  The Sapim CX-Ray is an example.  Very expensive and harder to build with for your first wheels

For your first few wheelbuilds you'd be well advised to stay with 14g double butted or plain gauge if cost is a factor (about $16 less for a pair of wheels).  You have been warned!

Lacing - This is the act of crossing spokes.  Look at most wheels - the spokes cross each other - this is called Lacing. 99% of all wheels are laced cross-3 (usually written x3) - each spoke crosses three others.  Other lacing is x4, x2, x1 and "Radial" spoking (no spoke crosses any other spoke, it goes straight to the rim).  There are very good reasons that most wheels are laced x3.  YOU need to have a very good reason to deviate from this.  That's all I'll say here as this IS "beginners" wheelbuilding info.

Warning for Newbs - the following things make the act of wheelbuilding MUCH harder for those with little or no experience.     - thinner spokes like DT Revolution, Sapim Laser or thin straight gauge spokes (plain 15g) -  they twist (wind-up) much more than thicker spokes.  Straight 14g are the easiest followed by double butted 14/15g.  The latter is your best bet, all things considered.   - less spokes.  28 spokes make the job much harder than 36 spokes.  As we reduce spokes, each one has much more effect on the rim and adjustment is crucial. A great compromise are 32 spoke wheels - the standard.   - spoke crosses.  The standard is "cross 3" or 3x.  Less crosses (2x, 1x or radial) are not as much of an issue as the above two things but they do make  the job a bit more difficult.  Less crosses use slightly shorter spokes but the weight savings is very minimal.   - light rims.  There's just less material (and strength) than "normal" rims (400g+) and everything about them is less forgiving.  Correct tension and even tension is absolutely crucial.   - no eyelets.  The easiest rims to build with have stainless eyelets where the nipples seat.  Very light rims cut all the corners in their quest for low weight and cheap rims cut the same corners to keep the cost down.   - aluminum nipples.  The standard are "brass".  Aluminum ones are more fragile for spoke wrench work and correct length spokes are crucial. The ideal wheels for your first builds, taking everything into account, are good quality rims with stainless eyelets, 32h, using 14/15gauge double butted spokes laced x3 all round.

Here we go -

Here are some important tips that I’ve found over a lifetime of wheelbuilding. Some may be found in the literature on wheels and some may not. Probably the most important thing to remember is not to rush your wheels. Go slowly and work with patience, care and passion. You can probably do a better job than most "professional" wheelbuilders as you have unlimited time to do a perfect job.  Try to make your first wheel as perfect as possible.  When you get experienced you will find ways to make building faster.  If you're doing one or two sets of wheels per year like the average bike rider then what's an extra couple of hours?

Before you begin, assemble all your tools and supplies. I sit on a low stool with everything spread around me on the floor so I can’t drop anything too far. You only need to put the wheels into the frame for final tensioning and truing. You have a long way to go before that stage.

Take that 4" piece of spoke and screw a nipple onto it upside down. Dip the nipple into grease and grease each nipple seat in the rim. This reduces friction for tensioning & truing.  Or you can drop one drop of oil (any oil) down between the nipple where it sticks through the rim and the eyelet.

Paint the threads of all the spokes with anti-seize compound. This allows you to easily re-true years down the road.  That stuff is messy so be sparing and careful.  If you don't want to buy anti-seize at least use grease or oil but it won't last as long as the anti-seize.  Use something though!
Don't build wheels with dry spoke threads.

Please do not ever use LocTite, as properly tensioned wheels do not need gluing together. They are also hard to re-true. The spokes will tend to wind up instead of the nipples turning.  It's correct spoke tension that holds wheels together, gives them their strength and prevents nipples from unscrewing.

Locktite - Yes I use blue locktite for some applications but the extremely small radius of the spoke cross section has a hard time resisting the torque required to overcome the drag imposed by the locktite on spoke threads. Thus, instead of the nipple turning on the spoke threads, the spoke tends to twist. This is called "spoke wind-up" and it results in incorrect tension - you THINK you tightened the nipple a 1/8th turn while in effect you twisted the spoke an 1/8th turn. When the wheel is stress relieved, this twist comes out and the wheel loosens off minutely.

Make sure you have your spokes in four groups or bunches. Front spokes are sometimes the same lengths as non-drive rears but drive side rears are usually shorter. DO NOT MIX THEM UP!!   Bring the bunch (16?) you're working with near to you and keep all the others away, still in their respective bunches. 

Make sure the rim labels can be read from the right side of the bike and the hub names can be read from the rear of the bike and that tire valves come out between the parallel spokes. Why? Re-read my sentence on "Care and Passion" – have pride in your wheels and try to do them as perfectly as possible.  Those are the first things that wheelbuilders look for when someone shows them a set of wheels and says "My first wheels, waddya think?"

With hollow rims it is easy to get nipples lost inside the rim. To make it easier to install nipples in some rims, screw one onto your 4" piece of spoke about two turns and poke it down through the rim hole.  If you can do this with your fingers then do it as it's much quicker.

Apply masking tape to the rim at the valve hole.  This gives you a frame of reference when going around the rim bringing spokes up to tension.  ALWAYS start and stop at the valve hole and don't let anything disturb you or you'll lose your place.  Ignore the phone and the door.  Only stop if you smell smoke, see flames or the Swat team bursts in.

When screwing down the nipples, do everything EVENLY all the way around the wheel so you do not get the rim off center or get hops in it.  I can't stress this important part enough.

On of the most important, fundamental things when building the wheel is to get the first spoke (the key spoke) into the correct location.  All wheelbuilding literature stresses this step and it's very important to get it right.  Put the rim over your head like a halo and look closely at the piece of rim opposite your eyes.  Get the valve hole dead center.  Look at the spoke holes on each side of it.  They're staggered ~ one will be offset up and the other one down.  They alternate like this all round the rim.  Of course all the holes on one side of the rim go to the hub flange on that side. Back to the key spoke.  Make sure it's exactly where it's supposed to be - and that's usually the first 'up' hole to the left of the valve hole.

Screw the nipples on about 2 turns – this step is not crucial – approx. 2 turns is close enough but don't do it more than 4 or you might not get the final few nipples on.  I just give four twists with finger & thumb. When you have all the nipples on double check the lacing.  Make sure both sides have the same # of crosses!! and that all the spokes are over or under where they are supposed to be.  One guy I knew did one side of a wheel x3 and the other side x4.  Ahem.  With your modified Phillips screwdriver, screw all nipples down until 1/8" of thread remains. Now take them all down until two threads remain and then once again until all threads JUST vanish inside the nipple.  Stop here and take a breather.

DO NOT RUSH or cut short the above step as it is your only means of making sure all the nipples area screwed down evenly. It ensures a hub centered perfectly in the rim.

From this point on you have NO FRAME OF REFERENCE of how much the nipples are screwed down relative to each other. You must do everything evenly until you come to final truing. Make sure from now on that you count spoke wrench turns or fractions of a turn. Example: If you turn the wrench ¼ of a turn for one nipple make sure you turn all other nipples the same.

Lay the wheel in your lap.  Start tensioning the wheels by tightening the nipples 1 turn each. You may use your modified phillips screwdriver for this early stage as with its tape in place you can easily count turns or partial turns.  Go around once. If they are still mostly loose, go around again with another turn. If some were getting tight then go with ½ or ¼ turn all round. Remember to keep the turns even for one whole revolution of the rim!!  It's far better to go round 5x doing half turns than to go round once doing two turns and then find out you can't get two turns out of the last few spokes.  Ignore this advice at your peril.  If you have the correct length spokes you will probably have to go around about six times.  Don't get bored and rush the process - just do one nipple turn per round.

Big Tip 
 It's very important to do everything even and if you're anything like me you drop the ol' spoke wrench once in a while.  So you bend down to pick it up and you've forgotten where you were on the wheel.  Now waddya do?   Well........I keep an extra spoke wrench in my pocket for such times and I never let go of the spoke I'm working on.  The cheap way is to keep a piece of  tape handy and before you bend down to pick up the wrench, just stick the tape to the last spoke you tightened.  Dead simple eh?  Whatever method you use don't forget the last spoke you turned and the direction in which you were going.

Keep going with this until you have a fair amount (judgment-call time!) of tension in the wheels. Do not be concerned about trueness or dish at this time.  Don't be concerned that some nipples turn easier than others or some spokes are looser or tighter.  If you've followed all the above advice you're doing just fine.

Spokes, when they are first tensioned, tend to straighten out and bed into the soft alloy of the hub flanges. We want to take all of that stretch and stuff out of them while we are doing the actual building. If we don’t, they will continue to stretch, straighten and bed on our first few rides and they will slacken off and allow the wheel to go out of true.  I've seen wheels loosen off so bad (not mine of course!) during their first ride that they were unridable.

Also when we build, we "wind up" the spokes (impart a twist) due to turning the nipples. This wind-up must be eliminated too.

There are six techniques that achieve the above three steps of pre-stretching, removing wind-up and bedding. Each separate method achieves more than one effect so I will lump them all together under "Pre-stressing and Wind-Up Relieving".

Method 1. Perform this once only, just after you have got a fair amount of tension in the wheels. Where the "heads in" spokes exit the hubs – take the plastic tipped hammer and tap the spoke bend a little flatter. This does not take much effort.

Method 2. Perform this after every "round" of truing or tensioning. Grasp parallel pairs of spokes on each side – one pair in each hand - while wearing leather gloves and squeeze them in the hands as hard as you can. Go all around the wheel once.

Method 3. Perform after every round. Take a plastic handled screwdriver, place the handle just above the spoke crosses furthest from the hubs and force spoke crosses down towards the hub with the handle.  Don't go ape here, use judgment, control and passion.

Method 4. Perform once. Take the screwdriver handle and slightly twist the final spoke crosses around each other. Be gentle here.  This is not really a "twist" but just a slight, very slight bending.  The spokes will do this themselves if you don't do it but then they might lose a minute bit of tension too while doing it.

Method 5. Do this once after you have a fair amount of tension on the spokes.  Take a thin punch and a hammer.  Tap the head of each spoke to seat the head squarely in the hub flange.  I said "tap"................not "pound the shit out of".  We're seating the head in the flange and aligning the head.

Method 6.  Place wheel flat on floor with the rim part nearest to you touching the floor.  With hands at 9 & 3, press down gently but quickly.  Rotate wheel 1/8th turn & repeat for one full turn of the wheel.  Turn wheel over and repeat.  The pings you hear are spokes unwinding.  Check for true afterwards.  Repeat this often during tensioning and truing.  I do it after each stage or "round".  Rotating 1/8th of a turn will unwind two spokes at once.

When you have a good degree of tension in the wheels (judgment call here), place the wheels in the frame, fork or stand and check and adjust the 'dish'.

DISH – "centering of the wheel between the hub locknuts, chainstays or fork blades".  What you're actually doing is centering the rim on the center line of the bike - a worthy goal eh?

Wheels must run along the same line as the centerline of the bike's frame.  The middle of the axle (or really half way between the axle locknuts!) is the center line of the frame.  But hub flanges aren't equidistant from the locknuts due to the space need by the cassette and disc brake rotors.  Take a close look at a hub and you will see what I mean.  Your rim will not necessarily be centered between the hub's flanges - this will happen only on non-disc front wheels and some single speed rear wheels.

To achieve Dish, some spokes (gear or disc side) will be more upright than the non drive side or disc side spokes.  Those more upright spokes will have more tension due to their lower pulling angle.  There is nothing wrong with this.  It's normal on all wheels except non disc brake front wheels.

Measure with the inside calipers from rim wall to stay or blade or flip-flop the wheel in the stand. Slacken all the spokes on one side of the wheel 1/4 turn and tighten an equal 1/4 turn on all spokes on the other side. This will move the rim over.  Repeat until centering is really close.  Use 1/8 turns if necessary.

Dish is a scary thing to many newby wheelbuilders.  Why, I have no idea.  All rims on all wheels have to be centered between the hub locknuts and that's all you're doing when you 'dish' a wheel.

Begin to true the wheels. Check Roger's e-book, Sheldon Brown's site or Park Tool's site (references below) for the fine details of truing.  Work on wobbles from each side of the wheel alternately. Hold a screwdriver against the stay or blade and let the rim scrape it to indicate the high spots. Move the screwdriver away until you just get a slight zing - this is the apex of the high spot.  If it's a big high spot, loosen about three spokes on either side of it.  Radiate outwards from it in lesser amounts of turning.  Say do a ¼ turn at the apex spoke, half that on the spoke either side of it and half that again on the two further away.  Sure you can't measure this but just be aware of doing it lesser and lesser as you move outwards.  Make damn sure you always working on the spokes on the correct side of the rim!!!  Make sure you turn the nipples the right way!

Check for out of round hops. If you took my advice at the start to screw all nipples down evenly then there will be no major hops. Minor ones can be ignored.  I don't bother about 1mm hops but others might.

When you have trued, stress relieved and bedded the spokes and you are getting to what you consider to be the end of the process (another judgment call) then you need to "tune" the spokes. This tells you the relative tension (see the box below) of all the spokes to each other. Obviously each spoke should be the same tension as all the others so that they all bear the same stress. Equal musical pitch equals equal tension!   So – pluck the spokes halfway along their length and adjust as necessary. Just make sure ping equals ping instead of pong. BTW – non-drive side spokes will be less tension than drive side spokes so do not compare the two sides.  Front disc brake wheels will be different side to side too.  Best not compare any side with another side.

When the spokes are tuned, then go back to truing and stress relieving and keep working back and forth until you cannot make the wheels any better. Only tune once though as the act of truing the wheels will make some spokes have slightly different tension. This is unavoidable and normal.

TENSION – probably the hardest part of wheelbuilding (for me anyway) is deciding how much tension is enough. Oh, sure there are expensive Tensiometers on the market built specially for this job but millions of wheels have been built successfully over the last hundred years without them.  Many of us use our experience to judge tension with great results.  Probably the best thing to do is to squeeze pairs of spokes on known good wheels (try expensive bikes at the bike shop) and commit the feel to memory. When we talk about 'tension' in bike wheels, it takes two forms - 1.  Final tension - A bike wheel is arguably the strongest structure in the world and spoke tension is the stuff that gives the wheel its enormous strength.   The final tension must be adequate to prevent the wheels from flexing too much in use.  This flexing, which leads to spokes suffering great swings of tension as the wheels rotate and the spokes are loaded and unloaded, is what makes the metal of spokes fatigue and break - usually at the elbow.  The tighter the spoke, the less the tension fluctuation.  But the tension must be within the rim's ability to support and absorb that tension.  Too much tension leads to rim cracking at the spoke eyelets.  It's really impossible to over tension good spokes as the rim is the weak spot in the system. 2.  Equal tension - the goal is to have all the spokes in a wheel at the same tension so that they each share the same amount of strain.  It's pointless to have only some of the spokes doing most of the work.  That makes them fatigue faster.  We can check even tension with a tensiometer or with the very efficient, accurate and quick "pluck" method described above.

It is almost impossible to get too much tension to the point where things start to break or crack.  Just be reasonable here.  When you think you have enough tension then you probably have.  Spoke makers have a big range for their spokes' recommended tensions and rim makers' suggested tensions are probably a touch on the low side (for their liability!) so there is a good chance you will be within that range.  My final tensioning is usually down to 1/8^th turns or less.  Do not concern yourself with the differences between drive side and non drive side tensions - or side to side differences in disc brake wheels which are dished too - the differences will be what they have to be to allow the dish to happen.

As a new wheelbuilder you should get into the habit of squeezing parallel pairs of spokes on almost all wheels you come across.  Do it on new bikes in bike shops and on your own and friends' wheels.  You will soon gain an appreciation for all levels of spoke tensions - both good and bad.  It won't take you long to form an opinion of what you consider good and bad tension.

Eventually you will not be able to improve the wheels at all. That is the time to wipe off all the grease (I use disc brake Isopropyl Alcohol), mount the rim tapes, tires, tubes and cassette and go for a ride to marvel in the wonder of how such fragile individual parts have the combined ability to hold up so much weight.

Boutique wheels The last few years have seen the wheel market flooded with ready-built wheels from the two biggest bike parts makers and many wheel specialist houses.  All these wheels are easily identified from a distance by their colors, spoking patterns and rim profiles.  We get a proliferation of reduced spokes, paired spokes and triple spokes and every visual combination in between.  These wheelsets all come with great claims about the benefits of their creativity. While the high-priced advertising that accompanies these wheels would have us believe differently, there is nothing magic about fewer spokes and spokes arranged in fancy groups.  A wheel has to support x amount of weight no matter how many spokes it has and if there are less spokes then those spokes have to share a bigger load than if there were the normal amount of spokes (32?).  That isn't rocket science. Also, if there are large amounts of rim without any spokes (check the paired and tripled spoke wheels!) then the unsupported rim has to be stronger (heavier?) than the same section of rim supported by more spokes. When one spoke breaks in a low spoked wheel it will go much further out of true than a normal spoke wheel - so much so that it could be unridable. So what we have here are not lighter, stronger or magic wheels.  We just have wheels that are visually different.  And that, my friends, is a an advertisers' dream. Oh yes, one more thing.  If you think these boutique wheels are great, just check the price and availability of those fancy spokes that hold them together.  They're spokes specially made for those wheels.  You'll get a shock when you ask the bike shop for a couple of spares - or worse still - ask if they can fix a broken spoke wheel for Sunday's ride.  With "normal" wheels you'll be out the door with a $0.75 spoke in your hand and with this guide, be able to fix it yourself in about five minutes.

 

Ready built wheels Recently we have seen a big upsurge in ready built mailorder wheels that use "normal" parts (I'm not talking "boutique" wheels here).  The prices on these wheelsets are usually much lower than we can buy the component parts for.  I guess by buying and selling in large volumes they can get the parts at great prices and sell competitively priced wheelsets.  I recently bought a set of these wheels and the whole wheelset cost me $30 less than I could buy just the hubs and rims for.  So I got free spokes, free building and $30 too.  Tough to beat! As I'm sure most mailorder wheelbuilders don't build with the same passion that us home wheelbuilders have, I imagine that they don't spend any more time than necessary on the build. As an experienced wheelbuilder, when my mailorder wheels arrived I checked them over very carefully and critically.  They were laced ok and they were very true out of the box.  So the next step was to stress-relieve them to see how good of a job had been done.  I performed "Method 6" of my "Pre-stressing and Wind-Up Relieving" above.  Ping! Pong!  Just as I expected!  The job of spoke twist relief had not been done!  The wheels had a noticeable wobble after I had done this.  The would have happened out on the road if I hadn't done it in the workshop.  Wheels pinging on the first ride and needing truing after riding points to a sloppy build.  If they hadn't done this step, what else hadn't they done?  I wasn't going to find out the hard way. I stopped short of slackening off all the spokes, which was my first thought.  I decided to start as if the wheels had been just brought up to tension - I performed all the steps above in my "Pre-stressing and Wind-Up Relieving" section.  While doing this I increased their tension a bit and trued them, going back & forth between wind-up relief (step 6) and truing.  After I was done I was very happy.  The wheels didn't go out of true after wind-up relief and that were true to 0.005" (five thou) on my dial indicator.

 

Single spoke replacement

Eventually the day will come that you break a spoke.  It's an easy job to replace a spoke and doing it yourself gets you back on the road or trail quickly without having to wait for the bike shop to get around to it.  For the price of a $0.75 spoke and five to fifteen minutes of work you can be back riding quickly.  Drive side rear spokes are a bit more involved as the cassette (or freewheel) has to be removed and replaced.  That's not much of a job if you have the tools (a chain whip and a lockring remover).  Of course, bikes with disc brakes will need the rotor removed.
For the instructions for this job, go to the Park Tool site - http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=48 and scroll down to "Cassette Cog Lockring Removal and Installation".  Most bikes have "cassette" rear gear clusters.  If you have the old style "freewheel" you will find the info for that too.

Most spokes break at the bend.  Unscrew the remaining piece of spoke out of the nipple and take it along to the bike shop or if you're anything like me, just compare its length to your stash of extra spokes.  Get a spoke of the same length, making sure that the broken piece gets accounted for.  This is important as spoke length to +/-1mm is important.

With the new spoke in hand, pass it through the hub flange making sure that its head is facing the opposite way to the other spokes on each side of it!  Think about that!  Spoke heads alternate on each side of the flange so yours needs to be opposite to those on either side.
Check the next spoke in the flange that heads in the direction that this new spoke is going to head (from hole to nipple).  You will see that this other spoke probably passes over two other spokes and under the third one (with x3 wheels).  Make your new spoke do the same thing.  You will have to bend the spoke slightly to get it to wind in and out of the other spokes.  This is ok; just don't kink it.  Don't scratch the rim either!!

Thread it into the nipple.  Think about which way the nipple will have to be turned for this.  A nipple is no more than a nut screwing onto the end of a bolt.  Tighten the nipple until you get some tension in the spoke.  To get its tension equal to those around it (not a bad idea eh!) start plucking the two spokes on either side of it and get its tone to match the other spokes.  When this is done, true the wheel as per normal wheel truing instructions.

Most spokes break from them being undertensioned.  This leads to metal fatigue.  I'd suggest checking the tension of all the spokes in the wheel.

It could be that other spokes in the undertensioned wheel are fatigued too.  If you break one or two more in that wheel it should be rebuilt with new spokes and sufficient (and even!) tension.

References - WheelPro - the BEST wheelbuilding source I've found.  Get an e-copy! - For the physical act of wheelbuilding try Sheldon Brown’s free website - Park Tool wheel truing info -  The BEST spoke length calculator.  Too easy to use - Tuning spokes by ear!  An interesting site - Get Sapim spokes here - Paul Morningstar, the tool inventor -

http://www.wheelpro.co.uk www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html  www.parktool.com/repair_help/howfix_truing.shtml http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/spokecalc/  www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/tension.htm www.ThorUSA.com www.morningstartools.com

Make your own low-budget wheel truing stand!

Here is a low budget but highly effective wheel truing stand for you - find yourself an old fork (mtb, road, it doesn't matter) and clamp it in a bench vise. You don't have a vise? Well GET one! They're cheap from tool discount houses or hardware type places. If you don't have a workbench then bolt it to a 24" square piece of plywood. Then you have a fine portable workbench cum wheel stand!  You could even sit this rig on Momma's dining room table.
Attach a couple of zipties and snip them off a 1/4" longer than the leg to rim distance. These indicate the wobbles.  I much prefer a screwdriver held against the fork leg though.
Forks are for 100mm front hubs so if you want to use it for 120 - 135mm rear hubs just mount the hub outside of one of the legs! This one legged approach is no different than a popular wheelstand on the market!  Google Image "ultimate wheel truing" and see what I mean.
To center or dish the rim just flip-flop the wheel in the stand. No need for a factory dishing gauge!  Get both sides equal to one of the zipties.
What could be easier and cheaper? Answer - nothing!

 

An ingenious wheel truing stand

This stand was sent to me by Roger Musson of WheelPro fame.  Roger had these made by a cabinet maker for his wheelbuilding classes and usually the students bought them after the class.  This stand works as well as anything on the market.  I've done slight modifications to it to customize it a little bit and have made provisions for Paul Morningstar's R2.O.C.-Tech dial indicator system.
Information on this stand and how to use the gauges are in Roger's wheelbuilding e-book.  The links for his site and Paul's site are above in my References list..

 

Tying & Soldering.

This is the old art of making a wheel stiffer and more homogenous.  This art used to be used many years ago on the wheels of track racers and some road racers and more recently it has been used on mtb wheels.  There is a good write-up of this in Gerd Schraner's "The Art of Wheelbuilding".
I'll make no claims for its usefulness and just tell you how I do it.  The final spoke cross is wrapped with thin wire and then the wire is soldered to hold it from unraveling.  This in effect makes the strain on one spoke transfer to the spoke it's tied to and thus maybe it spreads the strain more evenly around the wheel.

This is from the DT-Swiss website (makers of DT spokes) -

I use thin copper wire from an old truck wiring harness.  Go along to an automotive electrical shop or junkyard and ask if they have any old wiring harnesses that you might have.  I skin-off the insulation and strip out the copper wire strands.  I cut the wire strands into 8" lengths. Schraner uses tinned iron wire and DT-Swiss sell the stuff. 

Recently I saw spools of thin gauge copper wire in the local auto/hardware store.

Also you will need a roll of multi-core solder and a tin of paste flux plus an electric soldering iron or gun.

Look at the picture here.  Lay the wire up along the spoke cross and then neatly wrap the wire 5 times back downwards over the loose end of the wire .  Please be neat here and snug the wraps up nicely.  Then finish off as shown.  We don't need any fancy knots or twists as the solder is going to keep everything together.  When the solder has hardened (in seconds) wiggle the loose ends of the wire until they break off.

When all the wrapping is done, apply some paste flux to the wire, heat with the soldering gun and neatly apply solder.  Apply a very thin layer and knock off all blobs and excess solder before it solidifies.  You should be still able to see the wire wraps but they should be sealed with solder.  When everything is finished wash off the flux with soapy water and wipe dry.  It takes me a ½ hour per wheel.

Tire Tips

A few years ago I was on a ride where we had two torn tire sidewalls in 15 minutes. And it was the first fifteen minutes of a long ride too. The ride would have been a disaster but for the fact I had about three feet of duct tape wrapped around my pump waiting for such an occasion. I put a double patch on the inside for these two unfortunate fellows and away we went. Duct tape rules !

Since that day I've used my duct tape to tape the blown out bead of a tire back onto the casing.  Another ride saved!  Let's not even think of the five mile walk if no duct tape was carried.

For emergency boot material, carry a piece of lawn chair webbing with you!  Then when you get a slit sidewall, slide this inside the tire.  Better still, tape it in place with your duct tape -

More tips - remove your tubes and baby-powder them as we had one that was almost welded inside the tire.

Do not practice flat tire repair for the first time out on the trail, practice at home and then you'll see just how many tire levers you'll need for your tires and just how poor your shitty little mini-pump really is. Get the most expensive mini-pump you can find. Wrap your spare tube in an old sock so holes won't be worn into it through jiggling around in your bag. Carry a repair kit of instant patches for your second and third flat tire of the day. 

Even more tire tips - that slit tire sidewall can be fixed when you get home by sewing the slit together with dental floss of all things!  Just get a needle with a large eye and go to it.  Stick a layer of duct tape on the inside and the repair will last as long as the rest of the tire.

Still more tips - always mount the tire makers' label at the tire valve and on the right side of the bike.  Then when you get a flat tire you can find the hole in the tube and relate the area to a specific place on the tire.  Maybe you will find a thorn still sticking through the tire.

When you have found one thorn (or whatever caused the puncture) feel around the inside of the tire casing for a second one.  Remove the tire entirely and feel all round the interior with four fingers flattened.  I learned that one the hard way today - patch the tube, remove the thorn, inflate the tire and five minutes later it's flat again.  Sheesh.  Check again and find a second thorn.  Darn!

To make tube re-insertion easier and have less chance of pinching a tube, put a small amount of air in the tube just to make it round.  This is easy with a Presta valve - just inflate by mouth.  Try not to use tire levers when re-installing a tire - they make it easy to pinch the tube.

Studding mountain bike ice tires.

Almost any mountain bike tire will make a good studded ice tire but the better ones have larger and well-defined tread blocks.

The best tires of all-time for studding were the old Fisher or Panaracer Fat-Trax as they had only square blocks for tread which made stud location a snap. Check around to see if any bike shops have them gathering dust. I have two sets and no, I won't sell them.

Get a box of #8 Robertson [square hole] pan-head 1/2" screws and a drill-bit somewhat smaller than the screw dia.  You 'Murricans will have to use Phillips head.

Decide on a pattern but don't get carried away as more is not better - I have them alternating down the center and along the edges about every three inches each. That means the center ones are 3" apart and the edge ones are 3" apart too only alternating.

Drill down through the center of the tread blocks from the outside so that you can see exactly where the screw is going to go. Install the screws from the inside and now you can see if you bought the right length. You should have about 1 1/2 mm's sticking out. This does not seem like much but they will fold over if you have more.

When all the screws are in take a caulking gun with a tube of silicone in it and put a blob on each screw head and smear it smooth with your finger. You may use a tire liner for extra protection. I made mine from slitting old inner-tubes length-wise.

Have fun - you won't believe the traction on sheer ice - like a lake. You won't notice any difference on snow and don't even think of riding on paved roads.