Hill Slug Chronicles: We Have Wheels!

The Sourland Mountain as seen from Wheelfine Imports

13 February 2016

Over the past few weeks, on weeknights when was still awake enough, I worked on Rowlf's wheels for half an hour or so.

Thursday morning I decided enough was enough and scheduled time on Saturday afternoon with Michael at Wheelfine. "I'm having trouble getting them round," I told him, "without screwing everything else up." He told me that I needed to get the wheels round first, not last.

Jack and I were out with lab friends on Thursday evening. I figured I'd have only Friday night to work on the wheels. When we got home around 10:00, I headed downstairs to take care of the litter boxes. I never got that far; the wheels beckoned.

The rims were dancing a vertical hula. I set about making them round, losing the lateral true and the dish in the process. Once I got the wheels close to round, though, the rest came quickly. They were far from perfect, but at some point one has to call it a night. I called it a night at 12:00 in the morning and took a short video of the rear wheel.

(Moxie is in the background, waiting for his nightly Greenies.)

I left a day-long meeting an hour and a half early so that I could get up to Lambertville with a few hours left in the work day. I arrived at 2:40 p.m.

Michael was tending to a couple building a town bike from a beefy Bianchi. I waited an hour, but it was a fun hour. He was very into what he was doing, telling stories along the way, letting us yammer on while he put in one crank, decided the spacing was too tight for comfort, put in another, rummaged through hubs to find the exact ones, and distracting himself from his own story line to tell another in between.

Before starting with me, he stuffed the wood stove to the top with logs. Outside was below freezing. The front of the store was straight-up cold. The back, where we were, was chilly enough that we could feel the cold air coming through the cracks in the walls.

I gave him the rear wheel first. He squeezed the spokes and measured the tension. "Kinda mushy," he said. Although I'd brought them to the tension we'd planned on, that had been an estimate based on another set of wheels. "I like a tight wheel," he explained. First, he tightened the drive side, then started to make the wheel round.

Michael's wheel-finishing sequence:

1. Make the rim round;

2. Tighten the drive side;

3. Flip the wheel over and true it;

4. Dish it.

What I did:

1. Tighten the drive side;

2. Flip the wheel over and true it;

3. Dish it;

4. Make the rim round.

Right order, wrong starting point.

"I'm sorry to make you do this," I said.

"I don't mind. I like doing this."

Unlike last time, I could follow exactly what he was doing when, and why. I could even feel it, the way we can feel the road when we drive past a cyclist. What he did, he did quickly, and before long he was dripping Loctite into the spokes.

(That's Michael talking, always talking.)

I handed him the front wheel. This I'd made more round. It didn't take him long to straighten it out and tighten the spokes beyond where we'd estimated.

(More Michael talking)

Between wheels he poured fresh water in to the can on the stove. This is the shop's humidifier.

The middle room is so full of bikes that, at the end of the day, Michael pulled out a pole that reached across the room to the light switches to turn them off.

Next up, outfitting Rowlf.

I'd decided on Campagnolo Athena (thanks, FreeWheeler gearheads!) and brought my my bike fit measurements with me. I could tell that Michael truly digs doing this stuff: he even knew exactly which handlebar shape to put on to preserve the old school look.

He leafed through catalogs to find the saddle I wanted (I called home to triple-check: "Hey. Where are you? Can you do me a favor? Can you tell me exactly what it says on the side of Beaker's saddle? Beaker. The Tommasini. The blue one. Antares VS? That's what I thought. Thanks. Scalia's dead?!?")

The toughest part will be figuring out what stem to put on. That will have to be last. He'll do all the big stuff I don't have tools for: the headset, the crank, and probably the pedals. "I'll do the cables," I said. "I need to learn that better. I'll get friends to watch me." (Hi, Jim!) "I don't trust myself yet."