kaid59•1d ago

Appreciation post: hit 200 true wheel builds this morning without meaning to

I was just cleaning up the truing stand after a job for a neighbor's old touring bike and realized my build log hit 200. That's just wheels I actually laced and tensioned myself, not counting simple trues. It snuck up on me because I mostly do this as a side gig from my garage in Portland. Has anyone else had a number creep up on them like that without realizing?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_piper1d ago

And the thing is, 200 sounds like a lot until you remember how many of those were just basic 3-cross touring wheels that take maybe an hour if the rims aren't total garbage. I bet half that number came from people showing up with cracked spoke nipples on their 80s Fujis and wanting the same thing rebuilt. The real sneaky number for me is probably how many times I've had to fix someone's "I tried it myself" build where they laced it wrong and brought it to me with the spokes all twisted up. That kind of work adds up way faster than the clean builds you actually want to count.

sage_ramirez421d ago

Hold on... people are actually paying you to undo their own wheel builds? That's a whole other level of frustration I never considered. The twisted spoke thing sounds like a nightmare to straighten out, way more time than just building it right from scratch.