Forty-Five

Last week I bought "The Art of Wheelbuilding", an assortment of Park tools (TS-2, TM-1, WAG-4, SW-0), a new Velocity dyad rim, 36 DT Alpine III spokes and a box of DT Pro Lock brass nipples. I planned to build a new wheel around my old 32-hole "New" Surly MTB fixed/free hub. I could see that some of the holes were a little worn, especially the one where the spoke broke. But since I was using thicker, triple butted spokes, I wasn't worried about play between the spoke and the hub. If anything, I was concerned that the holes would be too small for the spokes, but that wasn't the case.

Friday I cut out all the old spokes - before I removed the cog. Doh!I tried everything short of a blow torch to get the cog off after that, but it wouldn't budge. Vice grips, liquid wrench, nailing the hub to a block of wood, a strap wrench, even a vice at the bike shop. All I managed to do was scratch my hub. Fortunately, it was a 15 tooth cog and I could just barely spoke the wheel with the cog attached. Saturday I built the wheel. Then I was able to remove the cog with a chain whip and a lot of force. Of course, at that point, the only thing left to do was put lots of grease on the threads and put the cog back on.

Sunday I did a preliminary measurement of the Hippie Chick 1/2 marathon course at Champoeg State Park - about 16 miles on the bike.

"The Part-Empty Box" came in the mail today.