Plan 2020 - Clincher Rear Wheel, aka "The DT Wheel"

One of the many critical things I need for training is a clincher fixed gear rear wheel. For the uninitiated, it's not just a matter of "converting a wheel". A track rear wheel is narrower, has a different hub, and is a specialized piece of equipment. With all the wheels I have, one thing I don't have is a knock-about fixed gear training wheel.

I do have a nice hub, so using that as a starting point, I built myself a nice training wheel.

Wheel building kit

Back in the day I built a lot of wheels, but wheels back then were simpler things. Nowadays the rims are taller, have a lot of nooks and crannies where you can lose a spoke nipple or something, and usually have lower spoke counts. Weight doesn't count as much as aero, and there's a whole new category of rims for disc brakes. With disc brakes the rim isn't the brake so the rim can be lighter and, most importantly (ha!), it can have decals on the side.

I decided to get a rim with decals on the side. I went with DT R460 rims just because they looked cool, they were clinchers, and they were relatively inexpensive.

Before my bike shop days ended I had gathered some wheel building supplies through a DT sponsored, in-shop course. Can you believe someone came to the shop and taught us how to build wheels?

Part of the kit included the pen-like gizmo in my kit above, a device designed to hold a spoke nipple so you could thread it onto a spoke deep inside an aero wheel.

I never used it until I build this wheel.

I also used spoke nipple washers (never used until this build). They're the cone shaped washers in the bag in the top right of the bin.

The crooked screwdriver is made to screw on nipples quickly. It's like a speed handle screwdriver.

The old wheel, before I tore it apart. Note cog on hub.

Built wheel, still to be tensioned.

Building the wheel took forever, probably about 2.5 -3 hours. Building it ended up being a calming experience, meditative experience. For the first time in a while I was lost in the process, focussed, and only realized how much time it was taking when I realized that I had to keep an eye out so I wouldn't be late picking up Junior (this was before the shelter at home thing). I left the wheel untensioned so there's a bit left to go, but otherwise it's all set.

Cog. I didn't remove it, built the wheel with it on the hub.

It's a bit funny, we used to joke about using cogs so small you could change a spoke without removing the freewheel. Well, this was my race wheel from 2009, and I just left the cog on through the entire tear down and rebuild process.

The other side of the hub.

It may not be pristine but for now it'll do.

How To - DV46 Spoke Lengths and Rebuild

The White Industries equipped 16H front and 20H rear Reynolds wheels uses spokes.

Of course.

I broke one of them a month or two ago, and with buying a house, moving, and even working, rebuilding the clincher rear has taken a bit of time. I finally got around to it, after overcoming a hurdle.

I found it a bit difficult to find exactly which size spokes the wheels use, and with the hidden spoke nipples, it was hard to see where they ended (and the broken spoke wasn't of much help). Reynold's site doesn't have specs for older wheels, especially those with hubs other than the ones currently used.

But they do have a support number.

So I called Reynolds, got a friendly and competent customer service person, and he looked up the spoke length for the White Industries equipped 16/20 spoke DV46 wheels.

The inner rim, where the spoke nipples sit, are the same for both the clincher and the tubular. The outer cap differentiates the two models. Since I have matching tubular and clincher DV46s, I decided that I better rebuild everything - the clinchers now, the tubulars after the clinchers.

Fine, I'll skip the front tubular I rebuilt two years ago, since that already has newer spokes. I used non-aero spokes, the better to make the wheel less flickery in sprints - for some reason I can't track a straight line when sprinting on aero-spoke equiped wheels. It must be me since no one else seems to have (or notice) this problem.

Anyway, for reference sake here are the spoke lengths:

Rear:
264 mm non drive
274 mm drive

Front:
266 mm front

I'll be re-using the original spoke nipples. I hadn't even taken one out to see what it looks like, but this last spoke popped way up top so the spoke nipple is rattling around in the rim.

The Reynolds spoke wrench (consumer version).

It is double ended, one longer than the other. I used the shorter end as the handle since it's easier to twirl. The wrench gives you tons of leverage so you don't need the long end except to free up old frozen nipples.

Here is the culprit. It broke on the threads. Brass nipple because it was a drive side spoke. Note the spokes are round for drive side, aero for non drive side. As mentioned before, I'll be using all round spokes, DT 14G Revolution spokes.

Preparing the new spokes.

Since it's a rear, I'm using two different color Spoke Prep, one for each side (they have different length spokes). In the Reynolds case the spokes are really different in length, but in normal wheel builds they differ by about 2 mm. This is hard to see right away and to avoid confusion and mis-laced wheels, it's better to play it save and use two colors. For front wheels you just use one color.

Nothing like some nice Spoke Prep. Dip and then rub it around.

Two different sides, ready to go. In my case I did Right Red (or beige). This makes Blue Left. The Blue side is visibly shorter, even in this not-too-close-up picture.

I started by removing one old spoke, then replacing it with one new one.

Spokes can be bent a bit. I'm doing this with an old spoke but I did it with new ones too. Don't bend too much, but relacing a wheel, one spoke at a time, will require some spoke "tweaks" to thread certain spokes through the mesh of spokes on the other side of the hub.

Respoking is a pain, especially since I didn't want to rotate the rim around at all. Since I didn't know how the rim reacts to different spoke angle stresses, I left the wheel intact (but loose) as I relaced the wheel.

Progress is when all the Red (beige) spokes are gone.

With hidden spoke nipples it's a real pain to thread the nipples onto the spoke. First you have to make sure the nipple gets on the spoke (I dropped two into the rim). Then you tighten it down. Since the spoke wrench for a hidden nipple rim is so far from the spoke, I can't feel the spoke twisting. Therefore I need to hold the spoke with my other hand to feel its twist.

Holding the spoke to feel it twist. Or, if removing a spoke, to hold it in place.

Turning the spoke nipple from the top. I couldn't take the two pictures at once because I don't have a third hand.

Wheel is laced but not tensioned. Note that all the spokes on the grey plastic bin top are the old black ones.

Favorite part of building a wheel (or relacing) - the spoke bend. I did it early on to make the relacing a bit easier, but at the end I did it properly using a screwdriver.

Wheel tensioned.

The wheel after its (my) record breaking run of 244 watts for 20 minutes. Note empty Gatorade bottles.

Its maiden run was on the Monday night group ride out of Granby Bikes. The wheel felt immediately responsive, stiff, rigid, just a joy to ride. Sure, you say, you've been riding other wheels, another bike, of course your "nice" bike will feel fine.

Fine, I admit that I've ridden the Giant on training rides, mainly with the Granby group. But I've been racing the Cannondale a couple times also, and I've ventured out a few times on it shod with race wheels, tubulars (no spares or anything). Although the tubulars are nice, they're not as, well, immediately responsive as the clinchers. I may have (a lot) more tension in the rear wheel but I'll have to check. Any differences or similarities should stand out when I rebuild the tubular DV46 with the same type of spokes.

Regardless they're nice wheels to ride now, and with a 20 spoke rear, instead of 19, it's a heck of a lot better.