Wheelbuilding Part 2: Lacing, Unlacing, and Re-Lacing

Mistakes were made! Lessons were learned! Fortunately, I'm in no hurry.

This past weekend, I sat down to lace up my front wheel. I laced up the whole thing, and then realized that I had made a mistake on both wheels. There are 36 holes in the rim: half are meant for spokes on the right side of the wheel, and half for spokes on the left side of the wheel.

As I've learned, it's pretty difficult to tell them apart. You can sort of tell in the photo above that each hole is slightly tilting to one side or the other. If you look even closer, you'll see that the spoke nipples I attached are leaning in the opposite direction from how the hole was drilled. I took the above photo before I took the wheel apart and started over.

I noticed that once I got the spokes attached into the correct rim holes, they fell into place more naturally, and were bowing less where they exited the rim.

So, yes, I had to completely redo both wheels. But I'm pretty sure they're correct now! (Fingers crossed...)

Next Monday I'll be going to an Open Shop event at a local bike shop where I will be able to get guidance from more experienced mechanics, and use some tools that will help me straighten and tighten these wheels.