Lace isn’t always frilly

Sometimes it’s an accomplishment.  Today, I laced my first bicycle wheel.  Well, I actually re-laced a wheel that I took apart last week.  I used the directions in a bicycle maintenance book by Leonard Zinn to lace the 32 spokes in a 3 cross pattern.  It actually only took about a half hour to lace, and then I tightened the spokes in a couple of loops around the wheel.  It’s not trued or tightened enough to ride, and I will take the wheel apart anyway.  This was more of a trial run to see how the lacing process works.

It actually went surprisingly well.  I didn’t have to redo any of the spokes, and I checked them as I inserted them.  I did the lacing in four sets of eight spokes just as the directions said and it all works.

As someone that is trying to become more knowledgeable about building and maintaining bicycles, building wheels is a skill that I’ve wanted to learn for a while now.

I’m going to build the wheels for the LeMond bicycle I’m restoring, and I plan to ride that bicycle in a century later this year.  So, I’d better get it right if I expect to finish without walking.

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