what was that? is that all there is? who is this? this is it.

Driving brass nipples with Zeppelin II on cassette.  Wrenching spokes three-cross between high flange flip flop hubs and dusty reclaimed rims. Turning in a Park truing stand that’s older than dirt (it once belonged to Conan, you know, the Conan that lived in the Mohawk Apartments and rode a fleet of immaculate $10,000 road bikes and always carried a sword around town and had the ultimate complete Campy tool set in a velvet lined wood case and loved to lunch at the Korean place on Broadway. He gave the stand to 09 Dave and then I bought it from Dave for $10 in 1997) add beer to taste and it’s wheel building time here at HQ.

There will be no aircraft industry adhesives involved. No need for gloves, respirators, eye protection, ear protection or dust collectors. There will be no acetone huffing. There will be no “special sauce” high temperature hocus pocus. There will be no carbon fucking fiber.

There will be some boiled linseed oil and black coffee.

Wanna come downstairs and talk about effective rim diameter? We can discuss bead seat diameters and uniform spoke tension and talk about guys named Jobst.  Then you can ask me about my learned helplessness and my career goals.  

Time is money. Money is time. It all depends on where you happen to be on the continuum.
 
When I was parsimoniously building up Blu’s bike it seemed to make sense to slap on a set of cheap Chinese knockoff wheels purchased from an unnamed source.

Then a couple weeks later some asshole stole them.

Since then she’s been riding on wornout wheels suffering severely from Seattle sidewall syndrome.   

I've  never been a big fan of plucking from Peter Bianchi to pay Paul Univega. So here and now it makes sense to reconfigure some hubs and rims that have been collecting dust in the basement and build a set of wheels.  Wheels that won’t bother me aesthetically or monetarily. Because like Larry Naylor said, bike mechanics live vicariously through their girlfriend’s bikes, even if their girlfriends couldn’t care less.  

If these wheels get stolen     then it’s personal.

6 Comments

Lefty loosey, BLO, Triplecross, White Castle

Good morning mister pilder. Back to the true/round art +/- .008".

back to the art of good enough is good enough in the place where nipples turn and spokes act accordingly and wheels smell like wheels

Ron Sutphin hates the smell of BLO

white castle fries only come in one size

I wouldn't mind however, plucking from Matt Bianchi to set up Said Univega. Or even Matt Case

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