Jerome & Elizabeth Moos wrote:
> The debates about how to lace a wheel, remind me of the "Big Endian"
> and "Little Endian" schism in Guliver's Travels, wherein simple
> personal preference is raised to the level of theology. I built my
> first wheels following the procedures set out in Jobst Brandt's The
> Bicycle Wheel, and have continued to do so because it works just
> fine. But Bob Lickton, who scoffs at Brandt, built me a very fine
> set on wheels with the rear wheel spoke heads on the "wrong" side of
> the flange according to Brandt. Lots of variations work fine as long
> as the spokes are correctly tensioned. Different strokes for
> different folks.
There's a lot of religion in wheel building, and I agree that there are many ways to build perfectly serviceable wheels.
I actually still have the very first set of wheels I built, way back in 1978 -- Campy Tipo SF hubs with Weinmann "concave" rims. They've needed nothing more than a little tweak every now and then; never broken a spoke or anything... but I did "goof" and cross the spokes over the valve stem on the front wheel. Never felt compelled to fix it, though.
--
-John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA