Rebuilding your wheels

I’m often asked to rebuild other people’s wheels with new spokes and nipples. In this post I explore WHY you’d want this done and some things to keep in mind when doing so.

I’m assuming your rims and hubs are NOT damaged and simply paying attention to replacing the spokes and nipples.

Why should you have your wheels rebuilt?

There are 2 main reasons to consider having your wheels rebuilt:

1. You’re breaking spokes
2. Your spoke nipples are seized to the spokes, or are breaking, making wheel truing impossible

Spoke breakage

Spokes normally break due to metal fatigue, caused by prolonged flexion of the spokes – normally when spokes have too little tension.

Picture bending a paperclip over and over again – it quickly breaks.

Often this is a symptom of sub-optimal build quality, and normally isn’t a sign of poor spoke quality. Factory-built wheels which come as standard equipment on many low-to-midrange, and sometimes even high-end bike suffer from this.

Once you’ve broken more than 1 spoke in a wheel, it’s time to replace them all with new ones, or they’ll all eventually break, one by one.

The downside to replacing the spokes one by one, is that you need to return the wheel to the bike shop or wheel builder repeatedly. This costs money and time.

Having your wheel rebuilt entirely means one trip, one expense, and a high likelihood that the problem will NEVER recur if the wheel is rebuilt properly.

Stuck or broken nipples

This is very common with older wheels which were originally built with alloy nipples. Over time the nipples corrode and seize to the spoke threads, or simply crack and crumble when attempting to true the wheel.

If the spoke threads were not properly lubricated at the time of building, this may even happen with relatively new wheels, especially factory-built, stock wheels.

Unfortunately, even though the spokes may be sound, they may need to be cut to disassemble the wheel.

The permanent remedy to this issue is to have the wheels rebuilt properly once, with high quality spokes and brass nipples, by a good wheel builder.

What is involved in rebuilding a wheel?

Simple really.

1. The wheel is completely disassembled.
2. The rim tape is removed.
3. The hub and rim are thoroughly cleaned and inspected for damage, such as cracks at the spoke holes in the rim or hub flange.
4. The hub and rim are accurately measured to determine proper spoke lengths required.
5. The spoke threads are lubricated prior to lacing, ensuring that the nipples never seize to the spokes ever again.
6. The wheel is assembled and the spokes tensioned optimally and evenly, preventing future spoke breakage.

Wheel rebuild service

If you need a wheel rebuild, I can arrange collection of the wheel, perform the rebuild and return the wheel by courier – typically within 10-14 days.

If this is something you think you need, get in touch for an itemized quote.