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The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt is all I ever needed. I've built hundreds of wheels, I don't feel I need this tool. I guess if you're being really anal about

The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt is all I ever needed. I've built hundreds of wheels, I don't feel I need this tool. I guess if you're being really anal about it it's of value. I've used a spoke tensioner once ever, just a stand and a good feel for tension is fine. I've ridden over 60000km on my wheels, no problems.

idontknowifican 5y ago
we both know that there are many types of cyclists. you’re clearly one of the 95% rider 5% equipment camp, but i don’t fully agree with you wrt racing. in racing (cat 6 all the way to cat 1) these sorts if things can provide the .5% boost needed. i guess this is more of a comment on the sort of people who would take the time to let us know how little they need help because they are so talented, when all it does is show how little they can understand others needs
- analog31 5y ago
  I build my own wheels too. There's another reason for these kinds of comments, which is that a lot of cyclists have been persuaded that wheelbuilding (and other kinds of bike work) is a deep philosophical mystery requiring decades of experience and a shop full of specialized tooling. Yet people have maintained their own bikes satisfactorily with basic tools for more than a century. This happens in any technical discipline -- two people will disagree diametrically on the amount of gear and technique needed, yet achieve identical results. And nobody knows why. So my own reaction is that equipment like this could benefit someone who is supporting competitive cyclists (including themselves), such a person knows who they are, and has already built a few wheels. But "the rest of us" sometimes just need a reassurance that much more modest tooling will get you to a satisfactory wheel that will last a long time. Likewise for routine periodic maintenance such as tensioning and truing. My goal is decent truth, zero spoke breakage, minimal re-truing later on.
  - pixelbreaker 5y ago
    Yeah, for Pro mechanics who are paid to build the absolute best, yes perhaps it's useful. But for the rest of us, nah.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Even then I doubt it. The best wheelbuilders are the tradional ones. Here is a fantastic, compact and very much to the point guide on how to spoke wheels (in dutch, google translate is your friend): http://www.m-gineering.nl/techdex.htm http://www.m-gineering.nl/techdex.htm
      - analog31 5y ago
        Likewise violin makers. I wonder if the common thread is that these activities require a high level of skill but don't pay very well and are tiny markets, so there's no way to do the R&D needed to automate production.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        There exist automatic wheel spoking machines, typically used for mass produced bikes. If I buy a new bike the first thing I do is check the spoke tension because for sure it will be a huge mess. The next is to check the fork bearings because those will usually be too tight (you can feel the individual balls) or too loose (a clicking sound when you hold the front brake and rock the bike back and forth). The joke here is that when you buy a bike it's more work than building one yourself because you first have to take it apart again. That's obviously not true but I've seen some pretty bad stuff come out of factories (brand names too...). One recent weird thing on a brand new bike was a set of spokes that had the inside and the outside exchanged leading to all of the spokes rubbing gaps in each other. I still wonder what the story was about that one, it makes absolutely no sense at all that an error like that would be made in a mass produced bike and no sane bike mechanic would spoke a wheel like that.
        analog31 5y ago
        I've seen videos of wheel making "by machine." There is still some manual work, such as part or even all of lacing. If a wheel is laced "off," then it's pretty much downhill from there. By day I'm an industrial physicist, and I've designed systems for doing automated mechanical adjustment. There's an 80/20 rule, where tightening the specs can dramatically increase the cycle time. So, you can make more widgets per hour if you relax the specs.
- pixelbreaker 5y ago
  I raced my hand built wheels on tour divide. They didn't explode, unlike a lot of people with overpriced wheels from "specialists". Granted, tour divide is the extreme end of endurance though.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I've seen more than one overtensioned bikewheel completely lose it, especially wheels with reduced numbers of spokes should be tensioned 'just so', too tight and you're waiting for a wheel failure, which if it is your front wheel at speed could very well land you in the hospital or even kill you.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
toss1 5y ago
Sure, I've built and raced my own wheels too, on my hand-built stand which just used thumbscrews for indicators. So, and I also clicked through with a pretty skeptical attitude. But it didn't take many seconds to say "oh, COOL!". Perhaps it is just that I now work in a field where tolerances in the thousandths of an inch are ordinary, but I would have thought this was way cool back then too. Now, would I spend the USD$785 for it as a hobbyist? Not likely, unless I got really serious about racing again. But if I built wheels on any more regular or professional basis, it's the first tool I'd get after the spoke wrench set and truing stand. Of course, the first improvement I'd really want is a way to track the locations of warps on the circumference of the rim and visualize them (e.g., an angular sensor and a way to measure a starting point such as the air valve hole). I'd also want to be sure that this whole setup does not require an internet connection. Of course, I'd be happy to share data if it could create some general benefit of big data analysis and I could share in that benefit, but it'd have to be optional.
- StayTrue 5y ago
  I appreciate your comment. This is a B2B product and I feel comfortable the ROI is there for the right customer. Keep in mind 50% of the price pays for premium digital indicators from Mitutoyo. On the Islandix blog I explain how to source cheaper Chinese indicators for customers wanting in at a lower pricepoint. To answer your question in the last paragraph, Wheel Analytics does not require an Internet connection. There is no phone home, no telemetry, no checking for software updates, etc. There are no cloud components that can fail or be withdrawn/changed.
  - toss1 5y ago
    OH COOL!! I was just skimming and didn't realize that that INCLUDED the pair of Mitutoyo digital indicators -- THAT actually makes it quite a bargain! (Do you manage to get a substantially better price buying them in bulk?) Also excellent news about the ability to work stand-alone / no connection! thanks!
- jimnotgym 5y ago
  Thumbscrews are plenty accurate enough imho. I an only interested in mountain bike wheels so... I would rather have a highly tensioned wheel than a very true wheel, and as wheels get to very high tensions they are harder to true, so it is a compromise. That's why lots of mechanics steer clear of high tensions, it its easier to go slacker.
wiredfool 5y ago
Given that Jobst Brandt was ... opinionated about tensiometers, I'd disagree. (well, he was opinionated about most everything) I think he'd like this system, as it provides a faster way to properly build up a wheel with well balanced, proper tension. The recording options would be welcomed as documentation of the wheel build.
- StayTrue 5y ago
  I like to think Brandt would approve. But he would probably have some thoughts and not spare my feelings haha. Thanks for your contributions about wheels elsewhere in this thread (I've restricted my comments to the tooling). You demonstrate knowledge that is uncommon even among people paid to work on wheels.
  - wiredfool 5y ago
    Thanks, I appreciate the recognition. When I was doing my masters in Civil/Structural (with a big side of FEA), I was somewhat obsessed with understanding bike wheels, as far as I could. Even spent a couple weeks while procrastinating on my project doing basically nothing but looking at old books (Theory of Elastic Stability, Timeshenko and Gere) and writing FEA model generators for wheels. Between that, a basic understanding from rec.bicycles.tech (including Brandt), his book, and wheel builds, I think I got there.
    - wiredfool 5y ago
      And now I've found the _archive_ of Jobst and r.b.t. https://yarchive.net/bike/index.html https://yarchive.net/bike/index.html And I'm sure that's only a portion of what he posted.

idontknowifican 5y ago

we both know that there are many types of cyclists. you’re clearly one of the 95% rider 5% equipment camp, but i don’t fully agree with you wrt racing. in racing (cat 6 all the way to cat 1) these sorts if things can provide the .5% boost needed. i guess this is more of a comment on the sort of people who would take the time to let us know how little they need help because they are so talented, when all it does is show how little they can understand others needs

analog31 5y ago
I build my own wheels too. There's another reason for these kinds of comments, which is that a lot of cyclists have been persuaded that wheelbuilding (and other kinds of bike work) is a deep philosophical mystery requiring decades of experience and a shop full of specialized tooling. Yet people have maintained their own bikes satisfactorily with basic tools for more than a century. This happens in any technical discipline -- two people will disagree diametrically on the amount of gear and technique needed, yet achieve identical results. And nobody knows why. So my own reaction is that equipment like this could benefit someone who is supporting competitive cyclists (including themselves), such a person knows who they are, and has already built a few wheels. But "the rest of us" sometimes just need a reassurance that much more modest tooling will get you to a satisfactory wheel that will last a long time. Likewise for routine periodic maintenance such as tensioning and truing. My goal is decent truth, zero spoke breakage, minimal re-truing later on.
- pixelbreaker 5y ago
  Yeah, for Pro mechanics who are paid to build the absolute best, yes perhaps it's useful. But for the rest of us, nah.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Even then I doubt it. The best wheelbuilders are the tradional ones. Here is a fantastic, compact and very much to the point guide on how to spoke wheels (in dutch, google translate is your friend): http://www.m-gineering.nl/techdex.htm http://www.m-gineering.nl/techdex.htm
    - analog31 5y ago
      Likewise violin makers. I wonder if the common thread is that these activities require a high level of skill but don't pay very well and are tiny markets, so there's no way to do the R&D needed to automate production.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        There exist automatic wheel spoking machines, typically used for mass produced bikes. If I buy a new bike the first thing I do is check the spoke tension because for sure it will be a huge mess. The next is to check the fork bearings because those will usually be too tight (you can feel the individual balls) or too loose (a clicking sound when you hold the front brake and rock the bike back and forth). The joke here is that when you buy a bike it's more work than building one yourself because you first have to take it apart again. That's obviously not true but I've seen some pretty bad stuff come out of factories (brand names too...). One recent weird thing on a brand new bike was a set of spokes that had the inside and the outside exchanged leading to all of the spokes rubbing gaps in each other. I still wonder what the story was about that one, it makes absolutely no sense at all that an error like that would be made in a mass produced bike and no sane bike mechanic would spoke a wheel like that.
        analog31 5y ago
        I've seen videos of wheel making "by machine." There is still some manual work, such as part or even all of lacing. If a wheel is laced "off," then it's pretty much downhill from there. By day I'm an industrial physicist, and I've designed systems for doing automated mechanical adjustment. There's an 80/20 rule, where tightening the specs can dramatically increase the cycle time. So, you can make more widgets per hour if you relax the specs.
pixelbreaker 5y ago
I raced my hand built wheels on tour divide. They didn't explode, unlike a lot of people with overpriced wheels from "specialists". Granted, tour divide is the extreme end of endurance though.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I've seen more than one overtensioned bikewheel completely lose it, especially wheels with reduced numbers of spokes should be tensioned 'just so', too tight and you're waiting for a wheel failure, which if it is your front wheel at speed could very well land you in the hospital or even kill you.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

toss1 5y ago

Sure, I've built and raced my own wheels too, on my hand-built stand which just used thumbscrews for indicators. So, and I also clicked through with a pretty skeptical attitude. But it didn't take many seconds to say "oh, COOL!". Perhaps it is just that I now work in a field where tolerances in the thousandths of an inch are ordinary, but I would have thought this was way cool back then too. Now, would I spend the USD$785 for it as a hobbyist? Not likely, unless I got really serious about racing again. But if I built wheels on any more regular or professional basis, it's the first tool I'd get after the spoke wrench set and truing stand. Of course, the first improvement I'd really want is a way to track the locations of warps on the circumference of the rim and visualize them (e.g., an angular sensor and a way to measure a starting point such as the air valve hole). I'd also want to be sure that this whole setup does not require an internet connection. Of course, I'd be happy to share data if it could create some general benefit of big data analysis and I could share in that benefit, but it'd have to be optional.

StayTrue 5y ago
I appreciate your comment. This is a B2B product and I feel comfortable the ROI is there for the right customer. Keep in mind 50% of the price pays for premium digital indicators from Mitutoyo. On the Islandix blog I explain how to source cheaper Chinese indicators for customers wanting in at a lower pricepoint. To answer your question in the last paragraph, Wheel Analytics does not require an Internet connection. There is no phone home, no telemetry, no checking for software updates, etc. There are no cloud components that can fail or be withdrawn/changed.
- toss1 5y ago
  OH COOL!! I was just skimming and didn't realize that that INCLUDED the pair of Mitutoyo digital indicators -- THAT actually makes it quite a bargain! (Do you manage to get a substantially better price buying them in bulk?) Also excellent news about the ability to work stand-alone / no connection! thanks!
jimnotgym 5y ago
Thumbscrews are plenty accurate enough imho. I an only interested in mountain bike wheels so... I would rather have a highly tensioned wheel than a very true wheel, and as wheels get to very high tensions they are harder to true, so it is a compromise. That's why lots of mechanics steer clear of high tensions, it its easier to go slacker.

wiredfool 5y ago

Given that Jobst Brandt was ... opinionated about tensiometers, I'd disagree. (well, he was opinionated about most everything) I think he'd like this system, as it provides a faster way to properly build up a wheel with well balanced, proper tension. The recording options would be welcomed as documentation of the wheel build.

StayTrue 5y ago
I like to think Brandt would approve. But he would probably have some thoughts and not spare my feelings haha. Thanks for your contributions about wheels elsewhere in this thread (I've restricted my comments to the tooling). You demonstrate knowledge that is uncommon even among people paid to work on wheels.
- wiredfool 5y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate the recognition. When I was doing my masters in Civil/Structural (with a big side of FEA), I was somewhat obsessed with understanding bike wheels, as far as I could. Even spent a couple weeks while procrastinating on my project doing basically nothing but looking at old books (Theory of Elastic Stability, Timeshenko and Gere) and writing FEA model generators for wheels. Between that, a basic understanding from rec.bicycles.tech (including Brandt), his book, and wheel builds, I think I got there.
  - wiredfool 5y ago
    And now I've found the _archive_ of Jobst and r.b.t. https://yarchive.net/bike/index.html https://yarchive.net/bike/index.html And I'm sure that's only a portion of what he posted.