Jobst's The Bicycle Wheel

On Mar 6, 11:52*pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote:
"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in messagenews:4bivq41ihjhbvnck0klavn7smsup8a5s3o@4ax .com...

To me, that book was so helpful simply in terms of its directions on
how to build a wheel. *Great book for me.

Now, with the internet, that info isn't as hard to come by. *When I
started building wheels, that was not the case.

Thanks.

Many of us had figured out how to build wheels properly before Jobst's
book came out, based upon common sense and copying STW (Stuff That
Worked). The cool thing about The Bicycle Wheel was that we then
understood *why* they worked. The things that we learned over time and
through experimentation all made sense.

The most-puzzling thing was that The Bicycle Wheel, in explaining things
so well, would give us pause to ponder whether it really mattered
whether a wheel stands on its spokes or not, because the wheels we were
building were holding up just find without having to figure that out.
Maybe if it had come out just a few years earlier, it could have been
the sort of thing a 16 year old would spend a lot of time thinking
about, instead of the relevance of existentialism and the meaning of
life.

I did have some good myth busting about tying and soldering -- which I
ignored for many years since I thought my tied and soldered wheels
looked cool and had more magic. I used a silver bearing solder (NSF
approved, so you could eat off the ties), and the ties polished up
nicely. -- Jay Beattie.

On Mar 7, 7:15*am, jim beam wrote:
Tom Sherman wrote:
"jwbinpdx" aka Jay Beattie wrote:
[...]
I don't think that building wheels is particularly hard or mysterious,
at least in concept. The hard part is knowing how a particular modern
rim will work with a rider of a certain weight. You learn over time
that an Aerohead OC at 100kgf will not stay tight under a 200+ pound
rider unless you use spoke goop.[...]

That implies that the rim is inadequate for the load.

indeed. *but you'd never know that from reading jobst's book - he thinks
you simply increase spoke tension to get a stronger wheel.

And the Aerohead can be used effectively by a 200+ rider, but don't
expect to keep the wheels true with only spoke tension -- not without
cracking spoke holes. A mild thread lock like linseed oil has worked
well for Peter and others even with heavier riders, IIRC. Moreover,
even much heavier rims using fewer spokes now require some sort of
thread lock -- and that appears to be common for prefab wheels, or at
least the ones I have seen.

Jobst's tension rules of thumb worked well for 5/6sp wheels based on
ModE and Super Champ 58-type rims. I had a cottage business building
those wheels back in the 70s and early 80s and never had a problem
with cracking or detensioning when those rules were followed. We can
argue about whether "modern" light weight rims are better, but I think
the relevant point is that they are different and that the old rules
no longer apply. There are also far more rims on the market, and any
modern book should (and may, I have not read Schraner's book) discuss
the various rim profiles and weight ranges, how they build up and who
should be riding them. Mike is right that whether my wheel is
standing, sitting or watching TV on its spokes is interesting from an
intellectual standpoint and probably worth a footnote, that's not what
I need to know to build a strong, modern wheel. -- Jay Beattie.

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
To me, that book was so helpful simply in terms of its directions on
how to build a wheel. Great book for me.

Now, with the internet, that info isn't as hard to come by. When I
started building wheels, that was not the case.

Thanks.

Many of us had figured out how to build wheels properly before Jobst's
book came out, based upon common sense and copying STW (Stuff That
Worked). The cool thing about The Bicycle Wheel was that we then
understood *why* they worked.

if you don't see how rim distortion is responsible for slackening
spokes, as opposed to "standing", you /still/ don't understand!


The things that we learned over time and
through experimentation all made sense.

The most-puzzling thing was that The Bicycle Wheel, in explaining things
so well, would give us pause to ponder whether it really mattered
whether a wheel stands on its spokes or not, because the wheels we were
building were holding up just find without having to figure that out.
Maybe if it had come out just a few years earlier, it could have been
the sort of thing a 16 year old would spend a lot of time thinking
about, instead of the relevance of existentialism and the meaning of
life.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com



if jobst had bothered to stay awake in class and had considered first
principles, he wouldn't have made the huge mistakes that lead him to
advocate spoke tension "as high as the rim can bear". seriously, his
fundamental misunderstandings have cost people millions of dollars over
the years.

jwbinpdx wrote:
On Mar 7, 7:15�am, jim beam wrote:
Tom Sherman wrote:
"jwbinpdx" aka Jay Beattie wrote:
[...]
I don't think that building wheels is particularly hard or mysterious,
at least in concept. The hard part is knowing how a particular modern
rim will work with a rider of a certain weight. You learn over time
that an Aerohead OC at 100kgf will not stay tight under a 200+ pound
rider unless you use spoke goop.[...]
That implies that the rim is inadequate for the load.
indeed. �but you'd never know that from reading jobst's book - he thinks
you simply increase spoke tension to get a stronger wheel.

And the Aerohead can be used effectively by a 200+ rider, but don't
expect to keep the wheels true with only spoke tension -- not without
cracking spoke holes. A mild thread lock like linseed oil has worked
well for Peter and others even with heavier riders, IIRC. Moreover,
even much heavier rims using fewer spokes now require some sort of
thread lock -- and that appears to be common for prefab wheels, or at
least the ones I have seen.

Jobst's tension rules of thumb worked well for 5/6sp wheels based on
ModE and Super Champ 58-type rims.

that was mere [lucky] coincidence for him.



I had a cottage business building
those wheels back in the 70s and early 80s and never had a problem
with cracking or detensioning when those rules were followed. We can
argue about whether "modern" light weight rims are better, but I think
the relevant point is that they are different and that the old rules
no longer apply.

they never did - it was just coincidence. just like jobst claiming to
have eliminated spoke fatigue at the same time vacuum degassed stainless
steels were coming on to the market. yes, spokes suddenly /did/ stop
breaking as much, but it didn't mean jobstian witchcraft was actually
working!


There are also far more rims on the market, and any
modern book should (and may, I have not read Schraner's book) discuss
the various rim profiles and weight ranges, how they build up and who
should be riding them. Mike is right that whether my wheel is
standing, sitting or watching TV on its spokes is interesting from an
intellectual standpoint and probably worth a footnote, that's not what
I need to know to build a strong, modern wheel. -- Jay Beattie.


what you need to know to build a modern wheel is the manufacturer's
tension spec.

"jwbinpdx" wrote in message
...
On Mar 6, 11:52 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote:
"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in
messagenews:4bivq41ihjhbvnck0klavn7smsup8a5s3o@4ax .com...

To me, that book was so helpful simply in terms of its directions on
how to build a wheel. Great book for me.

Now, with the internet, that info isn't as hard to come by. When I
started building wheels, that was not the case.

Thanks.

Many of us had figured out how to build wheels properly before Jobst's
book came out, based upon common sense and copying STW (Stuff That
Worked). The cool thing about The Bicycle Wheel was that we then
understood *why* they worked. The things that we learned over time and
through experimentation all made sense.

The most-puzzling thing was that The Bicycle Wheel, in explaining
things
so well, would give us pause to ponder whether it really mattered
whether a wheel stands on its spokes or not, because the wheels we
were
building were holding up just find without having to figure that out.
Maybe if it had come out just a few years earlier, it could have been
the sort of thing a 16 year old would spend a lot of time thinking
about, instead of the relevance of existentialism and the meaning of
life.
==========
I did have some good myth busting about tying and soldering -- which I
ignored for many years since I thought my tied and soldered wheels
looked cool and had more magic. I used a silver bearing solder (NSF
approved, so you could eat off the ties), and the ties polished up
nicely. -- Jay Beattie.

==========

Didn't we all go through a tie & soldering phase if we grew up in that
era? I just thought it was a cool thing to do, and useful if you were
building a wheel with beautiful-but-junk spokes (Robergel 3*) which
would break often. I discovered a highly-toxic flouride
(flourine?)-based flux that worked great but breathing the fumes may be
slightly responsible for the breathing issues I have today.

Life was golden when I discovered how much more durable a Robergel Sport
spoke was than anything else out there at the time. Ugly as could be
(zinc plated) but never ever failed. I was building so many wheels back
in the day that it didn't take very long to have a large-enough sample
size to learn quickly through experimentation. I know Jobst claims to
have wheels that still use spokes from the 70s, but he must have gotten
darned lucky because most of the spokes back then couldn't touch what we
take for granted today.

Did you also experiment with "radical" stuff like 2X front wheels? Back
then that was somehow pushing the envelope more than a radial. I think I
built one with 24 spokes and that, indeed, *was* radical at the time. Of
course 2X 24 spoke is probably similar to 3X 32 in terms of the angle
the spokes leave the rim.

I miss building lots of wheels. It got so easy after a while, just sort
of an automatic thing. The only way you could get mixed up was if you
didn't notice that it was a rim with the spokes offset to the wrong side
of the valve hole when building it up.

Jobst's book was very good and had enough info for anybody to build a
wheel, but it wasn't perfect in terms of its explanations &
illustrations. Something more along the lines of Tom Cuthbertson's style
would have been better for many, and I very nearly did write a pamphlet
entitled "The complete idiot's guide to wheelbuilding." The idea was to
have something so brain-dead simple that you could build a wheel while
watching TV and have it come out right.

I still build using the exact same technique/style as before, so it
could still be done. Just one more thing to get around to one of these
days. Of course, it would now be a page on our website. Which in itself
would cause problems, because I'd probably end up fielding all manner of
phone calls on a busy Saturday from people trying to build their own
wheel and looking for advice. I had to take down a page describing hints
& tricks on the Ciclomaster Hac-4 for exactly that reason.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

On Mar 7, 11:04*am, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:
"jwbinpdx" wrote in message

...
On Mar 6, 11:52 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote:



"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in
messagenews:4bivq41ihjhbvnck0klavn7smsup8a5s3o@4ax .com...

To me, that book was so helpful simply in terms of its directions on
how to build a wheel. Great book for me.

Now, with the internet, that info isn't as hard to come by. When I
started building wheels, that was not the case.

Thanks.

Many of us had figured out how to build wheels properly before Jobst's
book came out, based upon common sense and copying STW (Stuff That
Worked). The cool thing about The Bicycle Wheel was that we then
understood *why* they worked. The things that we learned over time and
through experimentation all made sense.

The most-puzzling thing was that The Bicycle Wheel, in explaining
things
so well, would give us pause to ponder whether it really mattered
whether a wheel stands on its spokes or not, because the wheels we
were
building were holding up just find without having to figure that out.
Maybe if it had come out just a few years earlier, it could have been
the sort of thing a 16 year old would spend a lot of time thinking
about, instead of the relevance of existentialism and the meaning of
life.

==========
I did have some good myth busting about tying and soldering -- which I
ignored for many years since I thought my tied and soldered wheels
looked cool and had more magic. *I used a silver bearing solder (NSF
approved, so you could eat off the ties), and the ties polished up
nicely. -- Jay Beattie.

==========

Didn't we all go through a tie & soldering phase if we grew up in that
era? I just thought it was a cool thing to do, and useful if you were
building a wheel with beautiful-but-junk spokes (Robergel 3*) which
would break often. I discovered a highly-toxic flouride
(flourine?)-based flux that worked great but breathing the fumes may be
slightly responsible for the breathing issues I have today.

snip

I was tying and soldering some Union galvanized spokes using a low
heat propane torch, and I actually melted a spoke. I remember
watching it stretch like hot chewing gum. It was weird, because I was
not applying that much heat -- my flux wasn't burning or the solder
bubling. I never had any problems with SS spokes. That was on a 2X
track wheel --- one of my few exotic wheels built for a guy who ate
wheels for breakfast.

Anyway, what you say about wheel building web-pages brings up
something important about the 70s- early 80s and that is that
information on wheel building was scant. It was an art left to the
wheel building gurus, who reminded you that building at home could
lead to catastrophic personal injuries or at least poor placings in
races. There were heated discussions about three cross versus four
cross and Three Star versus Alpine, Union and later DT etc. In fact,
there was a whole chorus of Cassandras who warned against SS spokes of
any brand. High flange versus low flange. Campy versus . . . uh, Campy
Tipo. I remember when Mavic SSC blues hit the American market (or at
least my consciousness) -- ridiculously expensive, boat anchor heavy
and reserved for "prol" racers -- people who could truly benefit from
their phenomenal strength and blue-ness. I really think that the SSC
Blues marked the beginning of the expensive wheel marketing BS
machine. -- Jay Beattie.

P.S. -- another thing about information back then, I remember going to
Terry Shaw's first shop on Williams in SJ to see the print off of the
wire service results from the TdF on a daily basis. He posted them in
the front window. It looked like they came off a teletype.

jwbinpdx wrote:
On Mar 7, 11:04 am, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:
"jwbinpdx" wrote in message

...
On Mar 6, 11:52 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote:



"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in
messagenews:4bivq41ihjhbvnck0klavn7smsup8a5s3o@4ax .com...
To me, that book was so helpful simply in terms of its directions on
how to build a wheel. Great book for me.
Now, with the internet, that info isn't as hard to come by. When I
started building wheels, that was not the case.
Thanks.
Many of us had figured out how to build wheels properly before Jobst's
book came out, based upon common sense and copying STW (Stuff That
Worked). The cool thing about The Bicycle Wheel was that we then
understood *why* they worked. The things that we learned over time and
through experimentation all made sense.
The most-puzzling thing was that The Bicycle Wheel, in explaining
things
so well, would give us pause to ponder whether it really mattered
whether a wheel stands on its spokes or not, because the wheels we
were
building were holding up just find without having to figure that out.
Maybe if it had come out just a few years earlier, it could have been
the sort of thing a 16 year old would spend a lot of time thinking
about, instead of the relevance of existentialism and the meaning of
life.
==========
I did have some good myth busting about tying and soldering -- which I
ignored for many years since I thought my tied and soldered wheels
looked cool and had more magic. I used a silver bearing solder (NSF
approved, so you could eat off the ties), and the ties polished up
nicely. -- Jay Beattie.

==========

Didn't we all go through a tie & soldering phase if we grew up in that
era? I just thought it was a cool thing to do, and useful if you were
building a wheel with beautiful-but-junk spokes (Robergel 3*) which
would break often. I discovered a highly-toxic flouride
(flourine?)-based flux that worked great but breathing the fumes may be
slightly responsible for the breathing issues I have today.

snip

I was tying and soldering some Union galvanized spokes using a low
heat propane torch, and I actually melted a spoke. I remember
watching it stretch like hot chewing gum. It was weird, because I was
not applying that much heat -- my flux wasn't burning or the solder
bubling. I never had any problems with SS spokes. That was on a 2X
track wheel --- one of my few exotic wheels built for a guy who ate
wheels for breakfast.

Anyway, what you say about wheel building web-pages brings up
something important about the 70s- early 80s and that is that
information on wheel building was scant. It was an art left to the
wheel building gurus, who reminded you that building at home could
lead to catastrophic personal injuries or at least poor placings in
races. There were heated discussions about three cross versus four
cross and Three Star versus Alpine, Union and later DT etc. In fact,
there was a whole chorus of Cassandras who warned against SS spokes of
any brand. High flange versus low flange. Campy versus . . . uh, Campy
Tipo. I remember when Mavic SSC blues hit the American market (or at
least my consciousness) -- ridiculously expensive, boat anchor heavy
and reserved for "prol" racers -- people who could truly benefit from
their phenomenal strength and blue-ness. I really think that the SSC
Blues marked the beginning of the expensive wheel marketing BS
machine. -- Jay Beattie.

P.S. -- another thing about information back then, I remember going to
Terry Shaw's first shop on Williams in SJ to see the print off of the
wire service results from the TdF on a daily basis. He posted them in
the front window. It looked like they came off a teletype.

Teletype? Modern! We waited for l'Equipe and La Gazzetta by Air Mail. NY
Times had a twenty word brief buried in the sports section and that was
it for USA coverage.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Ah knitting. There’s trouble in River City
And speed skating, hang gliding, ooohhh canvas kayak construction,
ahhhh
Dvd dvd dvd dvd instruction
How to tune your 275 ???
Learn to drive on ice with your 911
Endless
http://www.performancevideo.com/the_kayak_roll
But seriously, Ford’s video is so outstanding teaching a required
skill for survival that
http://www.useakayak.org/Merchant2/m...gory_Code=DVDE
Requires intelligence fathoming the teaching, witch is awesome: simple
narrative above 100 different runs thru surf to beach. ‘you get the
video’
Off course the wheel video. Read http://www.useakayak.org/ at
‘library’surf zone for the prose or JB’s centripetal force essay
without the visual spin.
Elliptically bent wheels round again ? off course
Young minds trained to think, analyze, build
The republic is saved

reading LBS wheel builders is interesting but not relevant to a
learning amateur straightening his one of two bent rims. An ugly
thought.
kinda like the LBS (liquid bull **** ?) stream of advice rises above
the reality of 'fixing' bikes and never seeing that bike again for
months years
black hole of actual inexperience.
nawyah fatswart drizbabble !!

In article ,
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 23:52:36 -0800, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:

Many of us had figured out how to build wheels properly before Jobst's
book came out, based upon common sense and copying STW (Stuff That
Worked). The cool thing about The Bicycle Wheel was that we then
understood *why* they worked. The things that we learned over time and
through experimentation all made sense.

I built my first wheel w/o the book and it worked well. I was copying
another wheel. But it took a long time - there were little tricks in
the order of doing things and how to do them that the book made faster
for me. I never worked in a bikeshop so only had limited experience
building stuff.

Show somebody a bicycle wheel.
Pluck the spokes.
Load the bicycle.
Pluck the spokes.
Point out that the spokes at the contact patch go much
lower in pitch when the bicycle is loaded.
Point out that the other spokes change pitch almost not
at all when the bicycle is loaded.
Point out that this is evidence that most of the load
is taken up by the spokes at the contact patch.
They still will not entertain the theory.
People are amazing.

--
Michael Press