Wheelbuilding / Wheel Building / Wheel build help

Holy crap you got be gentle when relieving the stress on a single wall rim eh?!

Building a coaster hub into the stock rim that came on my Pashley and just about folded it in half!

Can your mechanic (GC) do cycle scheme? Get all the bits through them.

He does not unfortunately

I could probably do it depending on which scheme and exactly what you want but I have access to most distros and schemes. Can build them up for you too but if you've got a person you like that's cool too, only problem would be my complete lack of cashflow after an appallingly slow winter, so you'd need to pay upfront to cover trade costs and I can refund that once the voucher pays out. Otherwise cycleschemes usually have a dealer section on their websites so look on that and pick one that's close or does most of the bits you'd need or both.

Parts wise, Son front, bitex or hope rear, Kinlin XR31 if you're more on the thinner tyre (I ride mine with 40c) with occasional widerboys or a TL23 if your mostly wideboys. 28 spokes is definitely plenty on the XR31s, I'd imagine the same goes for the TL23s. Let your builder order spokes after measuring.

Or make your builder sign up, it's not too hard for most of them.

Not-so-hypothetical question, wheel experts - I have been trying to resolve a horrible grinding / creaking noise that only comes under significant power in the lowest four or five gears on the cassette. I've gone through a few things, with no luck. Suddenly had the thought earlier that it could be the aero spokes grinding against each other; a quick finger squeeze suggest a couple of pairs are a little looser than the rest - I think I already know the answer to this (i.e. get them checked / tensioned / trued by someone who knows what they're doing...! / swap out the wheels to check if the noise goes away...!), but just for validation that I'm not going mad, does this sound like a likely possibility in the absence of anything else obvious?

just for validation that I'm not going mad, does this sound like a likely possibility in the absence of anything else obvious?

Spokes do move, that's how they transition from equal tension under no load to higher tension in the pulling spokes under driving torque load #everythingisrubber

Is that a yes then?! :)

Is that a yes

Yes, things which move while in contact can generate noise

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Ha, thanks!

What are the wheels?

https://www.huntbikewheels.com/products/hunt-50carbon-aero-disc-road-wheelset-1438g-50deep-27wide-24spoke-1099

(corrected - earlier link was non-disc version)

Booked them in to shop for a wheels tension-check / true anyway, so we will see if it sorts the issue!

I bought some cheap wheels in the Superstar sale a few weeks back and have had a change of plan with the bike build.

I have a set of 27.5" wheels with Boost hubs and a set of 29" wheels with QR hubs.
The axles can't be converted.

My plan of attack is to strip the wheels and swap the hubs. Sounds relatively straightforward but probably isn't!

I've had a quick measure and the rear wheel hub BCD on both wheels is the same, I'm guessing `I can reuse these spokes without needing to buy new ones?
The front wheels are around 1.5mm difference on the BCD. Would it be sensible to try and reuse these spokes as well?

Last but not least, what will I need?
I've got a wheel truing stand, some spoke keys and a spoke tension meter. I guess I'll be needing a couple of nipple drivers as well.

Is there anything else I'm missing, tool or idea wise?

So on the saga of the horrendous noise as per here https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16863599/, I've now had the bike in to the local shop, who have gone over the whole drivetrain and the wheel and have also concluded that the noise is coming from grinding spokes - I'm annoyed I didn't get to see this being tested and confirmed for myself before I start forking out for sorting it, but didn't think about it before it was too late...

I'm in the process of going through this with Hunt to see what they say, but am thinking that an option here would be to replace the rear hub with maybe DT Swiss 240, or Hope RS4 (either of which in straight pull or regular spokes) to get a bit of an upgrade and a nicer freehub noise(!), and have it rebuilt with maybe CX-Ray spokes or maybe just Race.

I can't really afford or justify forking out for a whole new wheelset, and the rims are basically fine, so seems like assuming the issue is with the spokes and the interlacing, this would be a decent way to conclude this for mediumish cost. Does this sound viable and like a reasonable way to go? Thoughts gratefully received!

Have you ruled out the spokes being below optimum tension? could be that increasing tension will reduce movement enough to get rid of the noise.

Hi thanks that's a very good point, I know the shop checked the tension of the spokes and checked that the wheel was true, but I didn't give them the tension recommendations and I doubt they would have gone to that level of detail (may be doing them a disservice here, I'm not meaning to!).

So that is a possibility... honestly even setting all this out is partly whey I want to ride the bike with another wheel in so I can confirm for myself that I'm not on a complete wild goose chase here!

Twat a bit of oil or grease where they touch and go ride it in a way that made the sound before, it should be gone or sound different. You'll need to pull the spokes apart and do this, if it's not really difficult to get grease between them you've probably already got your answer as to whether the tension is high enough.

Cheers - they did do that, but although I haven't had a chance to properly ride it to confirm, very brief ride down my road cranking the problem gears suggested it's made little to no difference... partly why I'm a bit dubious about the actual source! I will investigate a bit further over the weekend and see what I can establish for myself...

sounds doable. the difference of 1,5mm should be small enough to not cause any trouble. tools wise, I think you are more than sorted.

around 1.5mm difference on the BCD

On a tangentially spoked wheel, 1.5mm difference in the PCD at the hub makes about 5μm difference to the spoke length🙂

Have you checked the jockey wheels?

I had similar symptoms and was convinced it was my Hunt wheels causing the sound. Hunt sent out new bearings, axle, freehub. When removing the wheels I noticed the jockey wheel bearings were rusty and dry. New jockey wheels resolved the horrible creaking sound.

problem gears

Just some of them? Could be sprockets moving on the freehub rotor. Make sure the lock ring is correctly tightened, it's one of the threads which often gets too little gronk from people who don't use a torque wrench. The stamped individually mounted ones (5,6,7,8 on the pic, may be different on your cassette) are the suspect ones as they have the biggest radial clearance, so if it's those then setting the lock ring to the correct torque is worth trying if only to eliminate them from your enquiries

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Great to know, thanks for that.