The Wonder of Wheels

The First Mechanic Adventure Series Class Launches

While it may seem intimidating at first, building a wheel can be both an adventure and a rewarding challenge. Our wheelbuilding class is the first of a series of public classes in the Mechanic Adventure Series (MAS) launching in January 2025. This class sold out in 20 minutes after being posted and we were caught off guard at the interest and beyond excited to share one thing often seen as too challenging to take on.

The class was set with six workstations, fully ready with all the spokes, nipples, rims, and hubs needed to begin our adventure. The instruction starts with a short history of bicycle wheels and how they have changed from the 1860s to today. While not totally necessary, it really helps to flesh out the wonder that wheels can hold and how we who build today continue a long-held tradition of craft and skill.

“It gave me a better understanding of how a wheel is built and how a wheel works” – Ben

From there we covered the parts of a wheel and how to recognize the pattern of the spokes. A pattern shared across most wheels seen today and one that is critical to building a wheel properly, after all, we don’t want anyone to be riding a unicycle unintentionally. Next, we start loading the hub and lacing a wheel, with all of the prep done, we always like to stress that it is not overly hard, it just takes patience. Ben Rogers, one of our class participants stated, “It was a fun process over a complicated topic but we took our time”.

This course is designed to expand the knowledge of any person wanting to fix their own wheels or to build from scratch. This means a moderate knowledge of truing or bicycle mechanics is advised before jumping in as it is a lot of information to keep track of, but simple once you see how it works. Ben added this thought, “It gave me a better understanding of how a wheel is built and how a wheel works”.

The class ended with six wheels built and ready to be trued, a topic that will be covered in another one of our Mechanic Adventure Series classes soon. Other topics that will be adventured through are brakes, axels and bearings, shifting and indexing, headsets and bottom brackets, basic maintenance, and building a bike with custom components.

If you are interested in any of these classes or other topics please email The ReCycle Shop at recycle@bikewalkwichita.org and/or info@bikewalkwichita.org and we will look into it.

– Cody Custer