As I think I've quoted him before, Bob Lickton once told me "Jobst Brandt should stick to computer programming and leave wheelbuilding to those of us who do it for a living every day." This was when I had questionned why Lickton had not conformed to Brandt's theories of which side of the flange the spoke heads should go on when building a set of wheels for my wife's Bianchi. I must say the wheels have been just great for many years now, so it seems Bob knew what he was doing, Brandt's theories notwithstanding. A number of things that work in theory do not work in practice, and vice versa.
I will say, as one who builds my own wheels, (the ones from Lickton are probably the last I had built for me), but not for others, I don't have the procedure memorized like someone who builds wheels every day. So I use Brandt's book which I find illustrates the procedure extremely well. But I pretty much ignore the part of the book that discusses the theory.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, Texas, USA
donald gillies <gillies@ece.ubc.ca> wrote:
> Jobst suggests that wiping a tire is of little use, but it's one of those
> things that we tend to do.
unfortunately, Jobst is full of crap a surprising amount of the time. If wiping tires were of little use, then I guess all 20 of those Bicycling! magazine articles "Around the world by bike" in the 1970's, which ALL include pix of bikes with tire savers installed (which incidentally, wipe the tires) are staged shots, and tire-savers must not work, because Jobst says that wiping tires "is of little use"... even with tires savers ... sheesh ... what a nitwhit.
I _will_ say that the first time you wipe a tire by hand and something goes wrong, you'll decide that wiping a tire by hand is too much risk for too little reward. This realization will come after you do a 180 degree flip, or a thorn or piece of glass comes through your glove and goes into your hand, etc.
It's best left to the tire savers, which work beautifully in my experience (after 2 non-pinch flats commuting in one month ; I installed tire savers and had no flats for the next 2 years on the same little-groomed route.)
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA