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More About Wheels.

Before I was a framewright, before I was of the cycling subset that thinks of the frame as the most important component of a bicycle, but nonetheless well into my cycling life, I had a fascination for the bicycle wheel.

Mind you, not always- I spent many of my early cycling years completely unaware of the intricacies of the spoked wheel- most of us who ride can attest to the same truth. Even in more enlightened adulthood, I knew nothing of truing and tensioning, beyond that such was occasionally required, especially for those who rode as I did in the immortal era; however, I had not the skills, nor the necessary equipment, to effect adjustment and repair.

Ignorance was vanquished in 2002, when I found myself in the cozy confines of the United Bicycle Institute, where anointed ones provided, for a price, the Masonic secrets behind the mysterious spoked wheel. (I am allowed to write no more, lest I be found and secreted away, never to build another wheel- suffice to say that I did, in fact, make my own the knowledge necessary to produce and maintain bicycle wheels.)

Anyway- I have an expensively-procured certificate, signifying my place in the DT-Swiss Certified wheelwright pantheon; this and two dollars will get me a good espresso almost anywhere I find myself.

What, pray, is the point of all this? Simply - the spoked bicycle wheel, the marvel of technology effectively unchanged for over a century, is the most important contributing factor to the bicycle's ride quality, after (arguably) the frame. Count grams and chase performance upgrades anywhere else on the machine that you like- the most significant change a bike owner can make, when looking for an improvement in performance or comfort, is to upgrade his/her set of wheels.

That is why I build extremely good bicycle wheels. Now, click on these words to go back to the first Wheels page.