gearbasher

I like tradition and I'm anal about it. In this particular case, it has to do with wheels reading from the right. I always build my wheels so the rims read from the right. Unless they are decaled both ways. I always mount my tires so the label is on the right. But, these days, most tires are labeled on both sides. I also make sure my rim strips / tape also read from the right. I know, no one's gonna see it. So why bother? Well what upset me is a set of wheels I built with Miche Primato hubs. I built these a while ago and it bothered me back then. But today, when I stopped at a light and looked down, it just got to me. With the Miche hubs, the brand reads from the rear (as it should) but Primato and Made in Italy read from the left. Pisses me off. You would think an Italian company would keep up with tradition.

Or...am I being too anal?

Photos: Excuse the dirt, but I'm a firm believer of spending more time riding the bike than cleaning it.

repechage

welcome to the age of disruption.

steelbikeguy

This isn't the Catholic Church*... it's just a small aspect of a technology that's a bit over 100 years old. I'm not sure there's that much tradition.
Maybe time to go back to Campy Record high flange hubs??

Steve in Peoria
(* and ask some folks how they feel about mass no longer being conducted in Latin)

C9H13N 

I’d be more upset about the angle of that skewer than the direction of the lettering.

gearbasher

I am Catholic and feel mass should be said in Latin.

gearbasher

More of my tradition. I won't get into the reasoning, but an old timer (when I was young. I'm the old timer now) convinced me that was the best way for the skewer. I've been doing it for 40 years. It does get a lot of comments.

cudak888 

Sturmey-Archer has been flipping you the bird since 1950 and probably before that too. This picture is from the non-drive side.

Also notice patent stampings both perpendicular to the front-to-back orientation of the bike, and oriented so that they spin bottom-edge first.



Maybe we need a subforum to discuss tradition. (not)

-Kurt

steelbikeguy

then you are to be congratulated for continuing the tradition of clinging to the rituals that you enjoy and expressing discontent when one of them is lost

Steve in Peoria (also Catholic, and never experienced a Latin mass)

gearbasher

Sturmey-Archer is British. As the saying goes..."Give a Brit a piece of metal and he's bound to do something stupid with it."

gearbasher

They stopped the Latin when I was in 3rd grade. So, I experienced 3 years of the nuns beating it into me.

cudak888 

I like my stupid British things.








-Kurt

gearbasher

My favorite Winston Churchill quote: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
I guess it can go both ways.

cudak888 

Not far off from the reality of trying to get protected bike lanes built in the US.

-Kurt

gaucho777 

In the case of the hubs, I suspect the script is oriented that way since the cogs tend to obstruct the view from the drive side. Nonetheless, I agree they are practically unusable. We must preserve our traditions at all costs! One of my vintage Fiamme red label rims has an engraved “Fiamme” logo that doesn’t match the orientation of the decal. Such a wheel building conundrum.

tendency

..and the rust/grime - lol but hey .. to each their own

gugie 

We've still a few more things to try...

cudak888 

The DOT's haven't tried putting riders contraflow on 45mph arterials yet. Almost there.

-Kurt

merziac

Well Sheldon, Eddy and I agree, they point rearward, fortunately each of us can do it however we want.

iab

I have 2 sets of FB (Fratelli Brivio) hubs, Italian made. One is branded Paglianti, made sometime in the mid to late 1930s. The other is branded Frejus CdM, made in the early 1940s. Both are readable from the non-drive side.

When did this so-called "tradition" of readable on the drive side begin?

madpogue 

(Note valve location relative to spoke lacing....)

To the thread subject - I get drive-side tire label orientation/alignment (directional tread tires excepted, of course), for drive-side viewing / photography. But for rim and hub labels, a side-on view does not see them. Rim and hub labels are mostly seen by the user, who is most often seeing them while standing on the non-drive side. IOW, it's my bike, and I'd rather see them right-side-up from where I usually stand with the bike.

cudak888 

Glad you brought that up. For years I kept screwing up the NDS lacing on any rim where the drive side spoke was one hole ahead of the valve hole.

Then one day - very recently, I might add - I re-read Sheldon's wheelbuilding guide, figured out where I got confused, and haven't made the error again. I also submitted a suggestion to John (Allen) to revise the wording of the guide where the wording had confused me years ago...and he did!

One other useless bit of trivia: The factory built wheel w/original Raleigh spokes on my '50 Superbe from @Ged117 was laced wrong and also had the same issue. I re-did that entire side

-Kurt

John E

"Latin is a language, as dead as dead can be. First the killed the Romans; now it's killing me.

jdawginsc 

It seems every bike lately I have worked has the valve stem between two converging spokes, rather than between the more parallel ones...

everyone must have read the same Sheldon article...!

gugie 

What, no one's mentioned that you're supposed to look through the valve hole and see the Campagnolo logo directly underneath? That little bit of information is in a wheelbuilding book somewhere...

cudak888 

Thought you're supposed to look down at the Campagnolo logo and see the valve.

Either way, Tullio's ghost has not emerged to murder me for sins against Campagnoloism. Yet.

-Kurt