First couple are a bit dodgy. But once you get the hang of it, you can make a safe wheel easily enough - it's getting one that stays true a year later that's the challenge, given that a rider may have put hundreds of hours and some offroad silliness in there while you weren't checking.
The usual mistake is to make the spokes too loose, so they go a bit slack at certain points in the ride (i.e. at the bottom, or when honking out of the saddle). Spokes should be under tension all the time: it's a tension structure. Once they go slack, they can unscrew a little and flex, which lets the wheel get untrue and admits metal fatigue into them.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-07-09 10:46 pm (UTC)The usual mistake is to make the spokes too loose, so they go a bit slack at certain points in the ride (i.e. at the bottom, or when honking out of the saddle). Spokes should be under tension all the time: it's a tension structure. Once they go slack, they can unscrew a little and flex, which lets the wheel get untrue and admits metal fatigue into them.