I hate wheels

I want to murder this back wheel. It has an up and down wobble that I cannot get out and I messed up a bunch of the spoke nipples in the process.

Hopefully I can find black spoke nipples somewhere tomorrow. And with some luck, I can start over and get this wheel trued without throwing it across the garage.

Another useful link that hopefully helps me fix this problem:

http://www.odysseybmx.com/dailyword/2003/09/70-wheel-truing/#more-3085

Assembling round rolling things

I spent last night assembling the front and rear wheels for my new bike project. This would be the 5th time I’ve built a wheel if you count the one wheel I took apart after assembly because it was too lopsided to ride. Technically these would have been #3 and #4 respectively.

I don’t feel like giving too much away on the build but I went with the ever trusted Odyssey 7K-A rims, a Gsport Monkey front hub, and an Odyssey Hazard rear cassette. I’ll leave the unveiling for later.

But back to the wheel building point, it’s a very time consuming process for me. I would imagine it takes me an hour or so to assemble a wheel which is kind of sad because if you Google “Albes wheel build”, you’ll find yourself pointed at a video of a man who can build a complete wheel, and true it, in < 15 minutes. Sigh! But I’ve always been a slow and careful worker plus it’s not like I’m building these for a living.

I figure this might be of help to anyone who might stumble onto this site; the guide I use to build my wheels. This gets linked to a lot I imagine and George from Gsport is regarded quite highly in the BMX world so I figured he would be the man to follow. Using his guide, I do tend to end up with fairly true wheels straight out of assembly and the 2 I’ve actually built and trued, required very little work to get straight.

Here’s the link to the guide: http://www.gsportbmx.com/tech/guide_wheelbuilding.php

My Terrible One Barcode build

When I got into this crazy hobby of playing with BMX bikes at the ripe age of 31, I knew nothing and immediately got my hands on 2 Haro bikes. Turns out Haro is junk these days. I’ll pontificate on that point at a later moment.

Shortly after I started, I grabbed an early production Terrible One Barcode frame. This is back when they weighed something near 7 lbs, 12 oz and had an American bottom bracket. The 08 model weighed 5 lbs, 7 oz as a comparison and it also had the much smaller Spanish BB. Terrible one has a strong following but I do believe that the weight of the frame I started with was a bit much. Regardless, I jumped in head first and started buying parts. The following is what I ended up with.

• Frame: Terrible One Barcode (99 or 2000 vintage if I had to guess)
• Headset: Solid
• Bottom Bracket: Profile
• Bars: Solid Hella Light
• Grips: Solid Death grips
• Stem: Unknown
• Forks: Odyssey Pro Dirt
• Lever: Diatech Dirty Harry
• Cable: Odyssey Slic Kable
• Brake: Odyssey Evolver
• Pads: Odyssey 4×4 Red
• Cranks: Eastern 720
• Pedals: Odyssey Twisted PC
• Sprocket: Solid 36t
• Chain: KMC
• Hubs: G-Sport Homer (front & rear – 14mm, 48h, 4x lace pattern)
• Freewheel: Odyssey 13t
• Spokes: Sapim 14g
• Rims: Odyssey 7K-A
• Tires: Premium Refuse Resist Folding
• Seat Post: Shadow Conspiracy
• Seat: Shadow Conspiracy Penumbra

This resulted in a pretty solid bike that can handle a big guy like me and not need a whole lot of maintenance done to it. Sure, it’s not a sub 30lb bike (or if it is, it’s maybe 29 lbs) so it’s not going to win any popularity contests on the forums, but it’s a darn good bike if I have to say so.

I’m still a total newb at the BMX thing but I think building is where the fun is, hence there’ll be a 2nd build post coming up soon. For now, an already out of date picture.. yes, the Eclat seat is long gone.

The ever changing interests

I don’t expect this blog to make much sense. If it even ends up being used for that matter.

I change my hobbies like girls change their shoes. One week I’m into guns, the next I’m into cars, the next… well it just changes a lot.

The interest of the moment right now… BMX bicycles. And I’m 31 yrs old, never owned a real BMX bike, so it’s one of the more off-the-wall interests I’ve had. Thus far I’ve built one bike, am in the process of building a 2nd, and I also have 3 other frames in my garage that serve no purpose.

I’m an accumulator by nature so when I get into something, I collect massive quantities of the item. It takes a few weeks before I realize that the items I’ve amassed are junk or just sub-par stuff and then I go out and start buying new, better items. That leaves my garage, basement, etc… full of things I probably can’t get rid of.

It’s an odd ride being me, but I enjoy it.

First Post!!!!!1

Let’s watch this blog die like the rest!

Why do I even bother?