I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t save my beloved front training wheel.  It was one of the first ones I built back in 2006. After nearly 3 years and around 7,500 miles, the hub had finally had it. I kept adjusting the end cap, but it was always coming loose. I had also replaced the bearings once last year.  Not a bad life considering how horrible the roads are around here.

The good news is that the rim was still in decent shape.  I didn’t want to spend $$$ on new spokes or a new hub, so I decided to sabotage one of my lightly used CX wheels. It had the same number of spokes and they were the right length. As usual, I got the wheel laced, tensioned, and trued and was beginning to worry things wouldn’t work out, but somehow the wheel turned out OK.  Here’s a photo of my old hub and spokes, the new wheel, and a PDF showing build specs.  Now, I just need to go ride it.

Spoken Man sculpture – My old White Industries LTA hub and spokes after disassembly.

The new wheel – DT Swiss 240s hub laced 2x with DT Revolution spokes to a well used Mavic Open Pro rim.  The hubs are good enough for MTBing and it be interesting to see how much longer the rim lasts.

[ipaper id=13753397]

Specs for the wheel – I was aiming for about 110-120 kgf. I use a Park Tool tensionmeter to check spoke tension.