Re:
The wheels.
Classic spoke wheels, nothing fancy, 32 hole.
Front = 2x.
Rear = 3x drive side, 2x non-drive side.
Why? Why not 3x all the way around?
Well this is what I used back in the day with no issues and back then. The shorter the spokes, the less weight added to rolling weight right?
I was only 135lbs race weight back then, and I didn't have any issues with this cross pattern. I'm now 40 lbs heavier, but I'm not that fast and hard on equipment like I was back then. So my logic is the wheels should be fine. We'll see how that goes. :shock:
Awww, it'll be alright. It's not old or used equipment.
- NOS Ringle Super Bubba front & NOS Super Duper 8 for the rear. (Super 8 or Super Duper 8?) I bought these way before I had the frame. They were sitting in a box for a long while.
- NOS Mavic 117 SUP Ceramics. I had bought these even before I bought the hubs. These were also sitting around for a long time awaiting a cool bike. I'm not sure if these are team/Yeti correct, but I know they're period correct...cuz I ran them back in the day. I didn't want to go full high end and get the high cross section carbon fiber HED rims. That would have been too costly and would fit right..at least in my mind. They would fit if I was going to go full on 100% team race bike, but I'm not. I've used these back in they day and they're great, they're Mavic, anodized, and CERAMIC! What's not to love?
- Yeti Claw comp lite tires. Not NOS, but in excellent condition and supple. Well GD! They even still have the little whiskers on the knobs! :shock:
- Ringle Ti Skewers. I now have black ones as opposed to the silver ones pictured.
I could have sent the hubs & rims off to have the wheels built 'professionally', but where's the fun it that...and you can't claim the ownership of it. I used to work in a bike shop in the day and had built wheels before, so I did. The hub dimensions are easy if you have calipers. The rims are another story. Trying to find the 'correct' ERD for old school rims is very difficult. Let me emphasize CORRECT ERD. There were sites with ERDs listed had several different measurements. :? The wheel building site where they have a YouTube video of showing you how to calculate ERD yourself provided me a different measurement altogether from what other people had found. :evil: So for spoke length, I played it safe and bought longer spokes (by 2mils) than needed. For the front, easy day and G2G (good to go). For the rear, one side was good, the other side too long. So, I had to send the long side ones back to get cut. After they were cut, all good to go.
During the build, I used Wheelsmith spoke prep. And like in the past back in the day, it F'd up my build to where I had to undo all the spokes and brush the prep off. I used just a drop of chainwax lube for each nipple and it was G2G. It's like how I did in the 90's with no issues and it works today.
References.
-For spokes & misc phone help=Wheelbuilder.com. I've used them in the past for other stuff and the workmanship is A+. * I could have bought spokes from an LBS, but their stock of lengths were limited and they would have had to order it, in which I can do the same.
- For rim ERD, to get me in the general area I used the old 1-800-bikepro website under rims. NOT the bikebling site when you google it. The bikepro.com one. I also used the YouTube video by Prowheelbuilder.com, along with the other YT ERD vids.
- used a Park spoke tension meter/measurer tool.