Cycling UK Forum

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Erm,the idea of this part of the forum is that you ask a question or impart some helpful knowledge to others in need. If we were all to post just to tell everyone the particulars of our wheels then the forum would become a very crowded but uninspiring place

What was it that you forgot to ask? Are you after ideas as to which hubs or spokes to use to rebuild the wheels or do you want to know how to build wheels?

Good news is that an 8 speed hub is normally the same thing as a 10 speed hub, just change the cassette.

OLD spokes dont always prevent you from straightening a wheel but seized spokes certainly do.
I have a pair of wheels which I can never adjust because the spokes would always snap rather than the nipples turn.
Other wheels have old spokes which have been used a few times before on them.
However if you re-use spokes in a different position in a wheel they can give you problems as the get set into shape whilst in the wheel.
So if you replace a rim make sure you leave the spokes on the hub and in the same position.
I have replaced hubs but I took meticulous care to make sure each spoke went back in exactly the same place that it came out. New spokes would be much better but they are getting quite costly nowadays and the old ones do the job.
If you want to join a club say where you are and you might get suggestions.

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Yes, in the vast majority of cases the freehub will be good for all of 8, 9 or 10 speed cassettes.

If you were building the wheel yourself it would be worthwhile to use the old rim with new spokes but if you use different rims you may need different spoke lengths.
I would build with the old rim if I knew I could get more rims of the same type at a good price. Otherwise it may be a good time to buy a different type of rim and spokes that fit it.

If you are not doing the building yourself, then it is best to buy a complete new wheel or you will waste a lot of money in labour charges.

If you're going to the trouble of rebuilding your wheels you might as well use new spokes - S/H spokes are often slightly stretched from their first tour of duty, all at slightly different rates, and they stretch differently the second time round, making the whole business a bit unpredictable. If they're fat stainless 14G maybe apart from rear gear side they're re-usable but anything else usually gives problems when truing up and trying to get even tension.

The rims may be ok, it's not just how much wear they have left, it's whether they're still straight when un-built. When you've got the wheel in bits, lay the rim on a table and see how good it is. If it has wavy bits or bumps, you might find you're using uneven spoke tensions to bring those back into line, which will make a weaker wheel.

It's years since I built wheels for other people, but what I remember is that it's easy to churn out wheels from the bulk lot of hubs and rims you've already bought, but doing a special order, especially with someone's old rims, is a load more hassle, so the extra cost of the building might mean it would only be slightly more expensive to get a pair of new hand-built wheels rather than mess about rescuing old bits and converting from 8 to 10 speed. And you'd almost definitely end up with a stronger pair of wheels. Bad wheels are such a pain it's worth getting it right.

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I think KevinCairns opens up an interesting sub-thread.
I mean, how many bicycles are thrown away by the unenlighted, just because the space is needed for other things?

Perhaps rat-bicycles might be a suitable title. We could hold a competition to find the most recycled one at the York rally. I currently have a road-bike built from 5 others which were being scrapped.

Not so much a desire to save the planet (although that is highly commendable) as a protest about the high cost of parts and labour at cycle shops. In passing, does anyone have a suggestion for a nipple which is stuck solidly to a spoke thread? The flats on the nipple have become rounded off. The rest of the bike is OK having been found by the roadside, processed through the Police station and only needing a spare saddle.

kevincairns2008 wrote:I have three new hubs I could remove the old spokes and rims and send them to a shop to built new wheels,ps:would there likely to be any problems

Spoke length calculation is the hardest bit I can think of, but even then any decent wheel builder will work it out before starting, probably using a computer programme, and can't charge you for their own wasted time if they get it wrong.

New hubs with old spokes and rims? How did that happen? (Not important at all, I'm just curious!) Have they already been rebuilt once?

Rebuilt a wheel with some used spokes. Okay I was swapping the rim over to another and the spoke lengths were the same. They are Sapim so a quality brand.

The nipples are another important thing, if they're dull alloy ones then sling them. Brass nipples are reusable though.

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[quote="gaz"]I cannot imagine any bike shop, either local or mail order, being willing to build wheels with secondhand spokes or rims.

There are complex formulae to calculate the length of spokes to use when building a wheel. These depend upon the number of spokes, the diameter of the spoke holes in the hub, the distance each hub flange is from the centre of the hub, the number of spoke crossings for your desired build, the diameter of the rim at the point where the spoke nipples are seated, whether the spoke is on the drive or non-drive side and probably a few others I've forgotten.
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I would expect a shop to advise on the suitability of used components for re-use. If a rim dies very early (pot-hole etc) the spokes might be usable in a rebuild. If an obsolete hub needs upgrading, maybe the rim can be reused. If the wheel is falling apart, better to rebuild with new spokes than just true - it's a false economy. One LBS often declines to retrue knackered cheap wheels because they have no chance of staying true however expertly the retruing is done.

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