Placing Static Spokes in a Bicycle Wheel

Video Transcript

"In this clip, we'll do the cross spokes, both drive and non drive sides. Now, we can put in the first of our static spokes. Either side is ok to start with. Remember that introducing these spokes into the hub flange, they'll be on the opposite side. In other words, if the heads are out on a hub flange, the next series of spokes will go with heads in. We want overlapping spokes when we've got a complete wheel. So, I can start laying these spokes through. Again, these are the non drive side, static spokes or crossing spokes, as they are known. With these spokes in place, we're now going to introduce the cross pattern into the wheel. We calculated for a three cross pattern. Pick any spoke, lay the twist that you expect, the direction that you expect the wheel to twist. In this case, we're going in that direction. Count three crosses on any one of these spokes. I'll use a pointer to show you. We've got one cross here, two crossed there, three crosses there. That makes that the final spoke hole for this particular spoke. As it's laced through its crossing spokes, it's going to go over the first one, over the second one, and it will lace under the third one. We can use a nipple driver to drive that spoke into place. Keeping in mind that we always want spokes on the same hub flange to be separated by a spoke on the opposite hub flange. So, if we lay that spoke in place, we've got a drive side, a non drive side, and a drive side again. We'll repeat that pattern throughout the wheel. Lacing under that final cross. Over, over, under. Ok, I've installed all of my crossing spokes. Let's confirm, again, that we've got a symmetrical pattern, that we've got every other spoke represented. Every other hole represented on the rim. We've got our crossing pattern at each of these intersections. We can now lay in our final series of spokes. These guys will be the drive side, static spokes. I'm installing the final crossing spokes, and we're going to want to confirm our lacing pattern. I'm going to want to take a step back and look at this wheel and see if it looks symmetrical and even. Confirm a couple of key items, and make it ready for final tensioning. Sighting at the valve hole, we always want to confirm that we have parallel spokes there. If this is a thirty two hole wheel, it will also have parallel spokes at the seam, directly opposite here. If it's a thirty six hole wheel, this will be a crossing pattern at our seam. But, again, really important to look for parallel spokes at that valve hole. It tells you that you've got room to get into the valve when you're inflating the wheel later on down the road. Finally, we'll confirm the aesthetics. You want to make sure those labels are lined up. Has no bearing on the integrity of the wheel, but it sure looks cool."