I built my first wheel, and it rolls. The rear wheel on the single speed was getting a little bent, and I wanted to give the fixed gear a try. I wanted a cheap durable wheel, so here is what I built: A Suzue flip-flop 36 hole hub, Shimano Dura-Ace 16t track sprocket and lock ring, ACS 16t freewheel, Sun CR18 rim, DT swiss spokes and Spline Drive red alloy nipples. The spoke pattern on this wheel is 180° of black spokes with the other 180° silver. I used The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt and the help of Karl at Klunk.

The process was easier than I anticipated. The only tough part was the final truing. Starting with a cheap rim probably made this step a little more difficult than it should have been. Whatever the case, I think I may need my own truing stand so I can fix/build my own wheels in the future.

I’ll post updates on the fixed gear learning curve. Prior to building the wheel I had ridden a fixed gear, but only briefly. I’ve took the singlespeed around the block with no problems, though my skip stops need a lot of work…

This story was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 21:34 and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.