26 INCH BIKE WHEELS

THIRD PASS!

Now for the leading spokes (the first two passes were trailing spokes). Turn the wheel back over and insert a spoke into any hole but from the *inside* of the right/top flange. Keep the hub twisted clockwise or your wheel is gonna turn out more busted than your uncle Arnie's grill. Ok, so you got that spoke in. This part is kind of hard to explain and the best way for you to understand it is probably to look at an already built wheel and study it until you understand what is going on. This is the part where you actually "lace" the spokes. Of the three "crosses", the first occurs for most hubs actually behind or just barely outside the flange. The second one occurs maybe a half inch or so outside the flange, and the last one occurs out in the middle of spoke-land somewhere. Like I said it's both hard to describe and hard to see in my pictures so just get another wheel and stare at it til you understand.

Anyway - the first two crosses happen *outside* the other spokes, and the final third cross goes *under*. You can bend the spokes quite a bit, as long as you don't crimp them. Bending them to an extent is perfectly ok and you're not damaging them as long as you mind the springiness of the metal and don't create a permanent crease. Use the handy spoke-nipple trick I told you about in the beginning because if you haven't needed it yet, you'll almost definitely need to do it now as the spokes will have very little play at this point. I like to put all the spokes through the inside of the flange, lace them through, and just leave them tensioned against the third spoke and under the rim (you can kinda see this in the pics). Then you can go around and do all the nipples at once. Be careful not to mar up your rim with the sharp threading on the spokes!

I'm going to cut it short at this point because it's pretty much just repetition. You complete the spokes in the manner above, flip the wheel, then finish it off. Make sure all your triangles look even, brush your teeth, comb your hair and admire yourself in the mirror for a little while.

Co-worker says he was Just Riding Along when his rear wheel folded. No bumps or anything -- he was braking to a stop when it just tacoed spontaneously.

He bought this Diamonback bike from Sports Authority about two years ago and was riding on a path in Morgan Hill, CA.