Quote:
Originally Posted by LouDeeter
It was about 1982, I was in the Army in the DC area. I broke a spoke on the drive side of the rear wheel. I went to a bike shop and they wanted something like $25 to replace the spoke. Told me I was paying for labor, the spoke, their knowledge and the cost for tools. $25 seemed a lot 42 years ago. I researched it. Found out about freewheel removers, chainwhips, spoke length, and truing tools--spoke wrench, truing stand, and dish tool. No internet in those days, so it was a struggle to find information. I opted for the first one to get the minimum. It would be a few years before I added a truing stand and dish tool and by that time, I felt I was proficient enough to try my hand at building a wheel. Read the Jobst Brandt book, which explained a lot about the theory and steps. Today, I have a large selection of used & new spokes and while I don't find myself building many wheels, I do keep my neighborhood on the road by truing spokes and the occasional spoke replacement. I do still screw up and find the valve stem between crossing spokes, but never bothered me if it was going to be my wheel.
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As an aside, my teacher taught that on a 32h wheel, where parallel spokes 'could' be at the seam and valve stem..You 'could' lace(and he taught me how) so crossed spokes were at the 'weakest spots on the rim'..the seam and valve hole. He called it 'race lace'..I did that on a couple of customer's wheels, about 4 years later when I was in a shop..and they both complained that I 'laced it wrong', so haven't done that since.