Hand Built Gravel Wheels in the Workshop 🚴

Join Paul hand building a lovely set of Gravel wheels for a customer.
He takes you through his tools, the process and explains what the customer is after.

🛞 :
Rim: @dtswiss G540
Hubs: Shimano 105 R7070 @RideShimano
Spokes: DT Swiss Competition Spokes
Nipples: DT Swiss Pro Lock

TOOLS 🛠️ :
– Wheel Building Stand @parktool
– Dishing Tool @parktool
– Spoke Tension Meter @parktool
– @dtswiss Pro Line Spoke Wrench
– @dtswiss Pro Line Nipple Holder

We are Paul and Sarah of Velo Works. A small independent cycle business based in Bristol. We hand build wheels, run an online store and also undertake servicing and repairs.

You can find out more about us here: https://www.veloworkshop.co.uk/

Our handbuilt wheels can be seen here: https://www.veloworkshop.co.uk/handbuilt-wheels-uk

We love all things cycling from bike touring to Bromptons, mountain biking to vintage bikes and everything in between.

Follow us on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/velo_works/

Hi I’m Paul from B works and as usual it’s wheel building day here in the workshop a customer has requested a lovely set of gravel Wheels to be handbuilt by me he’s seen our videos I believe so that’s how he got a hold of us and he asked if we could document the

Process we’ve done a lot of wheel building videos but in this one we’re going to document the process of me building the wheels and then I’ll also talk to you about each stage of what I do when I build a wheel also what tools I use and what specification the wheels

Are going to be come join me so we’re using the DT Swiss g54 Rim really great go-to gravel Rim super strong rated up to 130 kg total system weight so that’s the rider the bike and all the luggage are really good choice for gravel riding bike packing adventures and most things really nice

Uh 24 mil internal width so good suited ready probably like 32 upwards up to kind of like 50 SE tires the 650b ones can take a wider Tire this one is the 700 C now a lot of people with their gravel Wheels do want a nice quiet Hub and this

Is where the r 7070 Shimano 105 hubs come in thing is if you’re out on a nice adventure and you got it’s not ideal really I know it has its place definitely but um the these are a really good choice We they come with 32 hole and 32 hole you can get 36

But that doesn’t suit the rim because they’re only 32 hole so really nice solid Hub centerlock attachments and up to 11speed road freehub so that is the hubs that we’re going to use we’re going to use our favorite spoke DT Swiss competition double butted spokes so super strong they are 2 m here

Two M here and they go down to 1 8 mil in the middle so they can just take impact um a lot better because of their design on this one we’ve got 290 M on the front that’s the length of the spokes and 288 sorry 290 on the left side and 288

On the right side or drive side bring these together using DT Swiss prolock brass nipples 12 mil so really these are really nice they’ve got fredlock inside them so once the wheel is all in its position it all locks nicely and stops the spokes undoing also with the process

I’m going to go through that helps as well also these don’t compromise rring so you can just retr as normal so yeah these are our go-to nipple and they are brass we tend not to use alloy nipples just brass ones because they’re much stronger and more durable for the

British climate so tool wise what do I need to get started I need my nipple holder as mentioned on previous videos my favorite tool DT Swiss spoke wrench my good goto spoke wrench and my Park Tool wheel Tru stand and then finishing off the wheel I use gauges for lateral

And Radial measurements then I will fit some nice D Swiss tubless Rim tape to finish so let’s go and get on building so first of all lacing lacing lacing lacing so I always start generally away from the disc I’ll do some counting I’m not super important super important is that logos

Line up I went on a ride recently and I kind of an aax and I did see someone’s wheels and the logos weren’t lined up and uh I almost cried I’ll be honest because it takes two seconds to do so if Sarah can get this on the video so what

We have is we’ve got the valve hole here and then we’ve got the O of the 105 there now whether this comes up right I’m not sure but if you look through the valve hole you should be able to see oh there we go we got it so super important

Just to get that right it’s a little detail it’s not the end of the world but I mean that what it me 20 seconds so best best to start as you mean to go on I think and I’m G to do a free cross pattern so that means that each spoke

Crosses the other three times so let’s go so I’m just finishing lacing the nisk side so they’re taking the longest spoke you can see here especially on this side one spoke here crosses one two three so that’s what I talk about when I’m talking about fre cross you get two

Cross which we do on 24 hole um or 24 spoke wheels 24 hole hubs and then you do get one cross which we don’t really do and you do get radial lacing which is no cross so basically it goes from the hole up to the rim we do quite a lot of

Them for Rim brakes you would never have a radially laced wheel for disc brakes because of the braking power here it would just go and and that would be the end of the wheel and maybe the end of view as well so I’m going to finish this off and then

We’ll go to the next process and as I’ll go along I’ll introduce a couple of other tools that I’m going to use along the way so Wheels have been laced next stage is to put a little bit of tension in the wheel and then go through some other

Processes the park tool stand is set up for a standard quick release the mounts just just up here so I need to have a for this axle it’s a 12 mil through axle so I have a 12 mil through axle adapter now what I need to do is get all

Of the spokes to a nice level start so if I start tighten them up individually with a Spoke key they’re all going to be a little bit all over the place so what we do to get started is a nice drill bit this is from unor which Bic basically

Pushes out as the nipple is driven in and the spoke is driven out so it’s really nice it basically means that we can start with all of our spokes in the same place so I’ve used the drill bit every spoken nipple is relatively in the same

Place which is nice I need to just put a little bit more tension through the spokes and then I can move on to the next step so the spokes have got a bit more tension in them a really important process is to use a punch and a hammer

On the spoke heads because these are classic J Bend Spokes and it’s highly likely that they’re not in exactly the perfect position so what we want to do at this stage once there’s a little bit of tension is use a hammer a punch on the spoke head espcially designed for it

So it’s concave and make sure we knock them into place let’s go so the process now is we want to go through a range of different procedures to get this wheel so it’s 2 mil laterally true and .5 mil rely true within those parameters what we need to

Do is we need to get the perfect amount of spoke tension these rims the maximum spoke tension is 1,200 Newton or 120 kg of force so we’re going to go just below that to make sure it’s not exceeding the manufacturer’s specifications and making sure that the

Spokes are nice and tight we need to make sure the dish is true which I’m going to is spot on which I’m going to talk about in a second and we need to make sure that it’s nice and true and also pre-stressed so the dish people say they get dish sometimes confused because

They’ll be like I need the wheel dish they actually mean they need it truee what dishing is is the center of the rim needs to be Central over the Hub because if you go to put the wheel into a bike and it’s not it’s going to be off in the

Frame some frames require um Wheels to be dished say 2 mil out or four mil out to cope with the design of the frame but Additionally you have to get the dish right which is Central and that’s super important and that’s why we use a wheel dishing tool and it basically sits on

Top of the wheel and use this gauge up and down to make sure it’s in line so we’re going to do that as we go along nice little bit of wood here which you’ll see me pre-stressing the wheel basically every time I tighten a Spoke the spoke is going to turn things are

Going to kind of knot up so what I want to do is I want to push on the Wheel to basically release that and as you do that it will go ting ting tinging Ting Ting because I want to do that pre-stressing I don’t want the customer

To do that so they get on their bike and it goes tingting tinging tingting and everything loosens and falls to the wrong position so you’ll see me pre-stressing the wheel and then I’ll be doing bits of TR as I go along and it’s basically little bit

Little bit little bit and the the more you do almost the less you do the better it is if that makes sense if you go and just gun and do loads of turns on each nipple you’re gonna have a lot of work to do later on sometimes to undo your

Work or you’ve done too much or the wheel’s under too much tension or it’s not dished properly so I’ll go through little by little by little and then it should be perfect spoke tensometer is really important in my opinion I’ve got a it’s not basic tension onet it’s really nice there’s

More advanced ones I get them really well with the park tool one some people will build Wheels without using one I think this is just a good reference I can feel through the wheel that the spoke tension is correct as I do it when it gets to that point but it’s good just

To have this as a reference and what you do is you put it on the spoke like this so at the moment it’s reading six I want to get that up to about 21 22 on the disc side with Wheels you measure the tension on the disc side or the drive

Side on the rear with Rim brake on the front you measure all of the spokes and I’m looking I’m not doing the thicker part of the spoke I’m looking to the deflection reading in the middle so got quite a way to go but that’s going to be used throughout the process

So again super important less is more in terms of wheel bearing so I started I think doing two turns per time on each spoke now I’m down to half just so I don’t overdo it and I build tension in the wheel nice and slowly it means that if there’s any

TR to be done it’s much easier to sort out and just means the wheel becomes nicely balanced so here as mentioned I’m pre-stressing the wheel making sure all the spokes go into the right place and I can put at this point all my weight on here just to make sure spokes aren’t caught

Up and we go here little click so I want the radial movement in the wheel to be between these two notches so it’s come up really good there’s always a little jump where the rim joins the itself so happy with that now on to check the lp control

Movement so we’re also good to go on this bit so the wheels now in the parameters that we want it’s dish correctly it’s within 2 mil laterally and .5 mil radially so it’s really good ready to go for the customer just need to fit some Rim tape box of wheels up

That wheel up and then get on and build the rear so thanks so much for watching the video just finishing off the rear wheel going to box them up and then get them posted I hope this customer is going to really enjoy these wheels I’ve really enjoyed

Building them and showing you a little bit more about the processes that we use when we build Wheels I love building Wheels if you watch our Channel regularly you’ll know how much I love it I love everything about it building the end product the whole process yeah and

I’m lucky that I build so many wheels it’s yeah it’s great it’s always really important to think about like what do you want from your wheels and hand bit wheels are a really good option if you’ve got the budget um they’re not super expensive they don’t have to be

But they’re really good option for you and something to think about because it will make your riding um much nicer you can always visit our website if you want to have a look at all the wheels we offer or contact us if you’ve got a specific build in mine again thanks for

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