How hard is it to build a road wheel?

Liam has always wanted to build his own road wheel. So we gave him a camera and told him to get on with it. What's the worst that could happen?

*If you're coming here for exact details then this isn't the video for you...

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[peterlewis]

Looks to me like you have valve hole in the wrong place with respect to the spokes. I would say that this is because you went right of the valve hole with the first spoke, rather than left. That way you would have ended up with two almost parallel spokes either side of the valve and much easier pump access. Anyone wanting to "try this at home" please follow sabamacx' advice, get the Roger Musson e-book and follow it.

[sabamacx]

I'm usually hugely sceptical, but the only e-book I've ever bought in my life was Roger Musson's Professional Guide to Wheel Building. It's cheap, in depth, holds your hand, and gets you set-after-set of bomb-proof wheels. Recommended.

[markj.a]

I'd love to try but this is one of those jobs where I'll stick to supporting a bike shop.

[Wolfmans]

Kudos for having a crack. I think I’ll keep going to my bike shop 😁👍

[byejason]

Never built a road wheel but I have built several mountain bike wheels just by following the guide on Sheldon browns website. It really wasn't all that hard. The first wheel I ever built I then did a 5 hour race on the next weekend and it held up fine. I can imagine that a road bike wheel with less spokes would be a bit trickier. A mountain bike wheel is probably more forgiving.

[ugurpolatarslan]

Which one is better ?
2cross or 3cross





Thanks for the answer

[Dehibernation]

I really hope you stressed your wheel before riding and trued it a second time.

[neilbain]

Best way to go about it is to get a feel for it then went about starting from a pile of bits.
To lace a wheel from a pile of bits is one thing. To true and tension those bits is another. That's why you should get a feel for it.
Don't put yourself suddenly in at the deep end.

[UnEmploymentDude]

Be very wary of those cheap spoke tensioners. Mine under-read the tension.
My new Park Tools tension meter read close to a heavily used shop one.

[rasmuswi]

I would
a: Have no idea whatsoever that the hub logo is supposed to line up with the rim logo, or
b: find something other than the wheel logo and decide I wanted to line the hub logos up to that.

[mlee]

If we reached Armageddon these skills would be very useful, for the time being I’ll leave this to my local bike shop.

[chuiwyjustin]

i'd rather just pay someone else to do it. Those few hours of my time would have cost me more.

[awhite]

What happened to part 2 of this video?

[SK-oxxq]

Is that a shower head behind him when doing the interview at the beginning?

[wasupwitdatmofiki]

I've been building wheels for years. You don't need to line up the logo. That is the kind of bull crap the same idiots that tell you need to line up the sticker on your tires with valve stem say. Building a wheel is easy, it's just time consuming but all you have to do is watch YouTube and anyone could do it. I would tell people to get a spoke tension meter if you think you might continue building more wheels in the future, it's just a nice tool to have for peace of mind. But you don't even need a truing stand because you can use the bike as a truing stand.