mihlbach

Um...why yes, you plainly were claiming these things. Your posts speak for themselves. You claimed that machine built wheels are (permanently) not as round as wheels that are fully hand-built, and that this interferes with braking, trueness, and durability (fatigue). Go back and read yer posts, dude.

And make up your mind. "Good enough" and "not good" are not the same thing. "Good enough" means the wheel will stay reasonably true and last...machine built wheels can do that with a little (compenent) adjustment, which again, was my original point.

Peedtm

Since you insist, Ill start with braking using traditional spelling. I said you can not align your pads very close to the rim (this is what calibrating relative to bike brakes means.) If your wheel is wobbly, it needs space on both sides and you can't get your pads in tight.

I also didn't say it was untruable. Like I'd mentioned, I don't use absolute statements. I even conceded that you could potentially adjust a machine built wheel to high accuracy, just that it'd take the perfect storm for this to happen. Untruable doesn't even have meaning to me as all wheels are in varying phases of true, some are less true, all are a relative true (unless destroyed.) What I said was that it would be impossible to true/round a wheel with even tension on the spokes if the wheel was not round to begin with. I said machine building makes it not round.

You didn't mention durability (fatigue) in the post I rebutted. I have nothing to dispute there.

Please accept our opinions differ on this. I'm done, (still right though.)

If you'd like additional opinions, write a wheelbuilder. Like a specialist. Someone like this guy, but someone I didn't recommend.

mihlbach

duh, but you can easily get them close enough on any new machine built or new hand built wheel. Its a non-issue.

This is also true of hand built wheels...virtually no rim is initially perfect.

This is the sum total of you argument here...that the machine building process permanently bends hoops (your words from an above post) to the point that the wheel can never simultaneously achieve (with hand adjustment) consistent tension and a degree of trueness on par with a hand built wheel. If that is what you are saying (and it seems to me that is your main point), then you are point blank wrong, because I have trued and tensioned many machine built wheels to near perfection.

MIN 

I love how a wheel discussion degenerates into a mindless semantic dissection.

Serendipper 

All the best semantic discussions are mindless.

Peedtm

I guess we're all wasting our money on labor. You might want to post this to the rest of the boards so they can know too.


What do you mean 'duh'? You just rebutted it in post 49 only to come back and agree with a duh.

Point 2 relates to point 3. You're right perfection is a statement on paper, not reality.

Subjecting a wheel to half of the spokes at near tension, while the other half has no spokes makes it an egg shape. (When I say half, I don't mean left and right) This leaves the wheel in much worse shape for you to simply touch up, then an entire wheel from scratch.


I can't figure out why you're arguing about this. Do you think 'handbuilt wheels' is some sort of marketing ploy to give out of work bike mechanics something to do? You're arguing with an accepted fact in the bicycle industry.

mihlbach

Hand built wheels are great and obviously not a ploy, though some wheelbuilders do certainly overhype the benefits. The main benefits are that you can (1) choose the specific components, (2) choose the configuration (lacing pattern, spoke count), and (3) get a reliable build. We are arguing about point #3. All I'm saying is that buying a machine built pair and having them hand corrected will get you basically (nearly, almost, etc.) the same thing in terms of build quality, often for less money. It does not matter that a man or machine put the wheel together, but the key to a stable long-lasting build is stress relieving and adequate, even tension. Thats the obvious point I have been attempting to make the entire time. Despite your claims (based on an unidentified video, apparently) that prebuilt wheels come permanently deformed, thus eliminating the possibility of adjusting them to a state that approaches a hand-quality build, I have never seen strong evidence of this, and am personally able to adjust machine-builds to a near-perfect condition (as good as my hand-built wheels) with no subsequent problems with the wheel. Obviously, we are talking about new or nearly new wheels. If the wheel has been damaged due to riding it, then all bets are off.

Peedtm

Well, I respectfully choose to disagree with that point. The link I added to Perfect Wheels addresses my point (the first bulletpoint,) and that's who (owner/mech/only employee) showed me how to build wheels.

Also, a lot of exotic wheels are machine built so I'm not discounting them as crap, just that they could be better.

Don't forget Arrospokes are machine built.

edit: im out. cya