The Wheel Fiasco

Stage 1 - Incident

Two weeks back Richard and I hopped on the train to Carron Valley near Croy to do a few of the MTB trails there. We slogged it pretty quick up and over the Tac' me Doon road (which I was looking forwards to crusing down on the way back) and reach Carron Valley pretty quick.

Richard set a cracking pace all day, and I struggled in parts to keep up! We did the runs a few times, helped a guy called Derick out with his kids puncture and did a few more. By this point I was feeling a bit cocky on the top section and tried to jump the full staircase via a new line, as I was jumping most of it on the other runs. Unfortunately this new line, which I thought was better in terms of it's exit around the boulder to the left at the bottom wasn't actually that good! Next thing I knew I was over the handlebar having clipped the boulder at the bottom! I got up sharpish, thankfully only grazed up and with a ripped jersey. My front wheel however was a different story completely! I still don't know how it ended up this battered!


 


This ended up with me pushing the bike down the rest of the run, then down the forestry track to the car park at the bottom. Embarrassingly I tried to take a shortcut across some of the berms and fell over exactly at the same point a lady slowly rolled past and asked if I was ok! The thought of how I would make it back to Glasgow then arose as the bike wasn't ride-able.

Step in hero of the hour, good old Derick! Lend an inner tube and you get a lift back to the station! Karma! If you ever read this I'd just like to thank you again, you saved me a very long ~5 miles push otherwise! This did however lead to another equally embarrassing moment when I had to change trains at Queen Street looking all battered, bleeding and ripped up. I got some funny looks and some concerned looks!


Stage 2 - wheel build
I decided it would be quite a fun idea to try and build up a wheel from scratch, and if it went horribly wrong take it into a bike shop to fix my shoddy workmanship. From the videos on the internet it didn't look too hard!

I ordered in a Mavic 119 rim and then measured my hub (since this was still ok) in order to determine the spoke length I would need, double checking this with Alpine Bikes in town. My calculations were correct and the guys said since it was a front wheel I could do it on one size spoke. I then laced up the wheel, where I realised the wheel rounding was beyond me. On recommendation I cycled it up on the road bike to Big Al at Wheelcraft in Campsie Glen to finish off.

New Wheel

These guys specialise in wheel builds and work in an Aladdin's cave of bike wheels (just look at the picture on their website here). Al took one look at my wheel and said what have done! With a disk wheel you need two spoke lengths due to having a disc brake (drive side and non drive side), which Alpine said I wouldn't need. I stripped my hard work down and replaced the spokes with some he cut to size for me under direction. Al then got to work rounding and truing and two hours later, a  cup of tea and some good chat/banter later we were done. A new sexy wheel.
 
I cannot recommend Al and Wheelcraft enough. They are thoroughly nice guys, who certainly know their stuff and are expert wheel builders. Whats more their prices are fantastic for the service unlike what the big chains were asking, who undoubtedly would have not done as good a job as Al has. If you ever need a wheel send it up to them. I'll be stopping by for a brew and chat every time I'm up that way.

On a side note it seems that since I turned 24 I've just been injured most of the time! It's hard getting old - turns out you are not indestructible!