Creative Intensity (A Wheel Building Story)
The classroom is bright and open.
Sunlight spills through the west door, pooling soft gold across the concrete floor. The gentle light of a Tuesday afternoon catches on the colorful murals of bicycle tools and a sweet, sleepy sloth, painted playfully around a whiteboard of diagrams in black marker. Red carts sit before each chair: workstations laid out with calipers, a hub, rim, two jars of spokes, spoke nipples, Tri-Flow, a rag, and a handout detailing today’s agenda.
It’s Day One of the two-session Wheel Building class — the most specialized mechanics course we offer, structured as an advanced dive into the intricacies of bicycle mechanics. Like all our classes, it blends demonstration with hands-on practice, striking an easy atmosphere that makes space for questions and discussion throughout.
The minutes before the start are easy and conversational. Emi, BICAS’ Education Coordinator and today’s instructor, chats with a sunny, personable group of students as the start time approaches, swapping stories about unusual bikes — tall bikes, penny-farthings — easing into the material the way she does best. At three o’clock, she gathers the room.
In attendance are four smiling students — three community members who signed up through our website; alongside Lauren, a fellow BICAS mechanic and class instructor, who is looking to expand her skills. With many years in the bicycle industry before having blessed BICAS with her skills last year, Lauren is participating in this less-often held class to learn a niche that is nary practiced in commercial shops, where pre-built wheel sets dominate bike repair.
Introductions go around: names, pronouns, and what brought each person to the class. The answers hum with the excitement already in the air — a long-held wish to learn this skill — or a desire to create wheels for their own bikes. When Emi shifts gently into instruction with, “Why would you want to hand-build a wheel?” the responses come quick and bright: “Better quality!” “Custom fit!” “Fun!” Emi meets each answer with easy enthusiasm, nodding, building on their thoughts. Yes — it’s an art. It’s romantic. But it’s practical, too: a well-made hub can last decades, and rebuilding a wheel — replacing only what’s worn — reduces waste, honoring the ethos of reuse at the heart of BICAS.
The students’ energy sets the tone as Emi begins walking through the materials in front of us with warmth and clarity. It’s a wonderful group — curious, engaged, quick to share what they know and eager to learn what they don’t. Conversation flows easily, collaboratively, questions sparking answers, ideas passing from hand to hand.
“What would you consider when choosing a hub?” Emi turns the class’ attention to the first piece of our wheel-building puzzle.
It’s impossible not to lean in. Wheel building leans heavier on theory than many bike repairs, but it is an art, and Emi’s teaching style keeps it grounded — approachable, collaborative, and informative. Answers start flowing: axle type, locknut dimension, tire clearance, lacing pattern. Emi breaks it down, offering common measurements and tips along the way.
In her hand gleams an unique example. It’s a Shimano rear hub from the late ’90s — silvery, faded, whose deep splines form a dramatic silhouette; built for radial lacing (spokes that don’t cross); for ten-speeds only. A hub like this demands careful research; the wrong materials would throw off your whole build. As the hub passes from hand to hand, each student feeling its weight, Emi uses this moment to propel the conversation forward: “So, what do you need to consider with gears?”
Students offer guesses — spacing, brakes, fixed versus single-speed — and Emi builds on each answer, weaving in stories from her own experience. She remembers one fixed gear hub where the lock ring threads had completely sheared off, a lesson in what can go wrong when components aren’t matched carefully.
When the discussion moves to rims, she shares another story: the first wheel she ever built. She’d taken every measurement, chosen a beautiful brown rim to match her bike — only to discover, after lacing it, that it was wrong size. A 700c rim where a 26-inch was needed — even a difference of millimeters makes a difference. “Double check, triple check,” she laughs. “Make sure your materials are right for your bike!”
From there, the class moves through the rest of the parts: spokes (butted, bladed, J-bend!), spoke nipples (brass is widely preferred!). Next, we examine radial forces, lateral forces, torsional forces: students guess how each applies to riding, and there isn’t only one right answer. When the lesson glides into lacing patterns, she gestures to the sample wheels around her. A standard BICAS wheel, she explains, uses three-cross lacing: strong, reliable, efficient.
“Open your handouts!” Emi announces brightly. The multipage guide maps out the measuring process — honoring the moment when lesson moves from theory to touch, from page to hand. Emi explains primary and secondary measurements; demonstrates the use of calipers to measure spokes. She also explains ERD sticks, which measure Effective Rim Diameter.
The ERD takes many hands, the class leaning in together, joined by shared enthusiasm. There’s a rhythm to it — the measurement is then taken in pairs by students for their own rims; while the other measurements — flange diameter, over locknut dimension, spoke hole diameter — are done individually. Students trace steps through their own materials, jotting their findings into their handouts.
These findings are plugged into the final spoke calculator; the hum of conversation rises as the computer churns through math, and drink flavors become a topic of playful debate as the work gives way to easy chatter — halfway through the first session, the mood light and easy, a gentle momentum which carries us naturally into a well-earned ten-minute break.
Just outside the west door that opens from the classroom, their laughter can be heard — weaving itself into the backdrop of colorful, one-of-a-kind wheels that hang along the fence like bright, spinning suns. The mood is light and connected; hopeful.
Students reconvene with high spirits; eager to delve into lacing. Emi explains options for lubrication — the common Spoke Prep, or her favored linseed oil; but for this class, Tri-Flow is the chosen treatment. In first dabbing grease into each spoke hole using a pair of Q-tips, each student’s rim is set to welcome their spokes.
The Tri-Flow drips onto nine spokes from the drive side jar, and in goes the very first spoke — this is the key spoke, and the spoke nipple is tightened just enough to hold it.
After the drive side inbound spokes, follows the non-drive side inbound spokes. When it’s time to flip the wheel — which makes a thrilling demonstration; Emi grasps the spokes by the fistful; her smooth, practiced motion holding them steady — students gasp as their own spokes slip out on the first try. There’s scattered laughter as folks get the hang of it. One by one, they find the rhythm, and each spokes is laid flat, a pattern emerging beneath their hands.
“At this point, they’re starting to look like wheels!” Emi quips, when the first set of outbound spokes are done (“over, over, under”), until only the non-drive side outbounds remain. It’s 5:45, and the room hums with focus. For this last, tricky set of spokes, the unique tool Emi introduces resembles a bent spoke with a nipple clamped to the end.
The students are absorbed, the rhythm of lacing soothing and meditative. In truth, the wheels indeed have taken shape. “Thursday’s all about truing and distressing,” Emi smiles, applauding the breathtaking work that everyone’s put in today. By 6:15, most are wrapping up, though the class runs until 7 to leave space for different paces — no rush, no stress, just the satisfaction of time well spent.
“How do you like lacing?” Emi asks, as folks wind down. The answers are honest: satisfying, challenging, meditative. Names are marked on rims for next time. The energy softens into easy conversation as people pack up, hands steady, hearts full — rightfully proud of what they’ve built so far, and of the care it took to get there.
In the space between sessions, the magic of wheel building swirls in our minds like mist. On Day Two, a student will share that they told friends about the class — how incredibly satisfying it felt to lace a wheel, to feel it come together spoke by spoke — and how those friends couldn’t believe when they heard it.
We know the feeling well now — the enchantment of dreaming from raw materials; the freedom of shaping something new.
When Day Two arrives, the energy hasn’t waned. Each student returns to find a truing stand waiting in their cart alongside their yesterday’s tools. Today is truing day, Emi announces; the anticipation hangs palpable and sweet.
The class begins with names and pronouns, followed by an icebreaker, and a short review to settle in. “Where’s your favorite place to ride in the summer?” Emi asks, and the room fills with the glow of yearned-for utopias — dewy evenings and mountain paths, rugged trails and open skies.
“What did we measure on Tuesday?” Emi begins, and the familiar back-and-forth picks up as if no time has passed at all — as if our shining group of wheel builders never left. They recall measuring the length between nuts (“yes! that’s the over locknut dimension!”) and the distance between the flanges (“that’s right!”). When the question of spoke types brings pause, the mood remains celebratory; light and warm. This is technical memory — but Emi’s gift is making the learning feel good, letting confidence settle gently for each person. As for the students — they take to this magnificently: bubbling with creative energy.
Attention is rapt as focus is called to the truing stand — the feel of its knobs new to all but Lauren. And yet, where truing an already-built wheel is intuitive to seasoned BICAS mechanics — itself a practiced dance of balancing adjustments between spokes; tightening one, loosening another, skillfully maintaining existing tension — wheel building is another game entirely. Here, no balance exists, because all of the tension has yet to be added. That step is soon to come.
For now, the class listens raptly as Emi flags a common stumbling block — the change in perspective when looking through a wheel. Where the direction of spoke nipples was intuitive during the lacing, tightening spoke nipples now appears counterclockwise from above. “Expect to forget that a few times, and be patient with yourself,” Emi reassures; it’ll become muscle memory, after more practice.
We’re fifteen minutes into class when the students place their own wheels in the stand — a much swifter lead-in than Tuesday. With theory refreshed and tools in hand, the room settles quickly into a rhythm — wheels turning slowly, spoke nipples rotating until only one thread on each is left visible.
The room is calm, only the soft murmur of the shop drifting in from beyond the classroom, where a few customers browse in the last quiet hours of the day. Here, conversation rises and falls between long, gentle stretches of focus. Emi guides students through adding initial tension — she grasps a pair of parallel spokes. “Feel the tension,” she encourages; feeling for spots most obviously tighter than others. The sounds of tightening are soft as students pause to squeeze their spokes, tangibly feeling the difference with spoke wrenches in hand. Emi circles the room, checking in, offering help where needed.
Students compare progress with another, testing by hand. (“May I feel your spokes?” “Feels perfect!”) Conversation drifts from spoke wrenches (these are three-sided here, but the softer aluminum would call for four-sided) to physics (relying on the first ride to tension a wheel would risk twisting spokes out of true).
One student goes to fetch their seltzer. Another’s phone rings. Emi recalls a relevant lesson. “I was reading this wheel-building book, and it claimed a well-built wheel should never go out of true or break a spoke.” The room responds in a wave of awws, rolling through the air like a monsoon through the wash.
It’s just before 4 when folks gather for the next demonstration, this time at Lauren’s stand. The spokes blur as Emi gives the wheel a gentle spin. At the faintest brush of the calipers, she pinches the spot between her fingers, tracking the motion back to where the rub begins. A half-turn adjustment to the spoke opposite the friction, another spin — and just like that, the wobble disappears. A quiet ripple of awe moves through the room. Now it’s the students’ turn, each one leaning into the rhythm of it: spin, listen, adjust, repeat — following the pattern until the rubbing stops and the wheels begin to find their balance.
Truing is intricate work. There’s an infectious softness to the intensity in the room, as students turn their wheels, tighten spokes, ask questions; and the work moves forward, careful and deliberate.
With lateral truing — the side-to-side alignment — complete, Emi introduces the next dimension: radial truing, the up-and-down balance that keeps the wheel round. Rims are always imperfect when they’re manufactured, she explains, giving a wheel a gentle spin with the calipers set beneath the rim. The wobble is audible as the wheel rises and dips.
The class welcome this next phase, eyes level with their spinning rims. “After radial truing, should I go back and check lateral again?” asks one student; the answer is yes. The balance between these two dimensions — back and forth, refining and rechecking — it’s this which brings the magic of wheel building all together.
Even then — the next step still awaits. The spokes, still flared slightly where they meet the hub, need to be seated against the flange. Emi offers a few methods of achieving this: whether squeezing opposite pairs of spokes together, or lacing a screwdriver laced through the triangles where spokes cross to nudge the spokes into place — pressing inbound spokes toward the flange, outbound spokes away.
Once the class have done this, they’re introduced to the dishing tool — wide, sloping, and curved; sitting against the rim with a dip that hovers the locknut. She calibrates it snugly against the drive side locknut, then flips the wheel. An open space gapes above the locknut on the non-drive side; the rear wheel-in-progress favors the drive side. The dishing tool measures this difference, allowing the wheel to be centered evenly in the stand: one quarter turn at a time.
Students move between the dishing tool and the truing stand: tightening, checking, flipping, repeating — coaxing their rims ever closer to the center. Around 5 o’ clock, Emi suggests the midway break, once folks feel close to happy with their dishing. This is met with a cheerful chorus of protests (“I can work on it during break!”); Emi reassures them there’s no need — dishing is a tricky step, worth taking time for. Break is pushed back another ten minutes, space made for that extra care.
At length, most do step away to chat, refill water, or take a breath. Only one student remains focused, chasing a little more perfection before rejoining the group others. It’s approaching 5:30 when the class reconvenes.
With some finishing dishing and others ready for the next step, Emi introduces the long-awaited spoke tensioning. “Don’t worry about rushing to get into it,” she assures the room. The tension meter is flat, blue tool, with an easy grip and a meticulously numbered gage. Paired with a chart, it helps measure whether the tension of each spoke sits within the correct range. Too much tension stresses the components, risking cracks. Too little, and the spokes may loosen and snap.
Every rim is unique, each with its own quirks and needs. Emi adjusts her guidance accordingly, quick with solutions and suggestions; attentive to the needs of each.
By now, the wheels are looking beautiful: trued, dished, with tension where it belongs. What remains is the last major step: releasing stress. There are a few ways to do it, but one of the simplest is pressing the wheel against the ground, using body weight to help the spokes settle fully into place.
When Emi places the demo back into the stand, to check for final adjustments, the true is only slightly off — a sign that the work was well done. Stress-releasing reveals just a few minor touch-ups, small shifts as the spokes untwist into perfect balance. The final adjustments are minute.
Soft creaking rises as students relieve stress from their wheels. Others are still fine-tuning their dishing.
Just after 6, the first amongst this enterprising class steps back to a completed piece. A fully built wheel — strong, true, balanced — is no small feat. Around the room, where other wheel-builders near their completion, each gleams with symmetrical elegance, folded in the triumph of the hands that crafted it.
Emi offers profound congratulations — and while others work, inquires on this first student’s interest in filling out an anonymous demographic survey. All of our students and customers are invited to this form; their responses support BICAS’ grant funding. Participants earn $16 in shop credit: good towards used parts, one used bike per year, up to half of each class’ tuition, or shop time in Community Tools.
“So, we can use the truing stands during Community Tools?” the student queries. Enthusiastically, Emi confirms, with one caveat: wheel building is a specialized, creative niche, and not every mechanic on duty may be confident in it. Still, for those ready to work independently, the space and tools are there.
“I feel good about it,” the student beams — and from that hard-won confidence, what can hold a wheel builder back? The conversation spills easily into favorite online tutorials (Emi recommends the Park Tool videos), shared tips, and the simple, exhilarating joy of building a wheel by hand.
It’s a quarter after six when the last student wraps up, and conversation dances easy and bright. Lauren grabs a hub from the case, brimming with uncontained excitement to incorporate wheel building into the mechanics she performs regularly at BICAS. Emi lights up beside her (she’s a fan of center lock).
Around the room, as happy students offer their thanks, jokes can be heard — where will they possibly find space for the tools they just know they’ll be buying, now that they’ve caught the wheel-building bug? The air feels bright, alive with ideas, the quiet hum of plans already beginning to spin towards the future.
By 6:30, with time still to spare, this accomplished class of students is heading out the door — smiling, still chatting, wreathed in the sweet conviction of what they’ve built and learned. Emi and Lauren exchange grins, then slip naturally into debrief, the familiar rhythm of the BICAS Education Committee at work — breaking down the evening, celebrating what shone, considering what aspects could grow stronger next time.
Through it all, the glow is inescapable — hope, imagination, possibility humming in the air. Will this feeling ever fade? It doesn’t seem likely. Not here. Not tonight.
Not now, as memory threads itself beneath the rhythm of my keyboard. We at BICAS cannot adequately express the breadth of our gratitude — to each of our brilliantly glimmering, shining students — builders of the wheel, dreamers of beyond — and thank you to Emi and Lauren, for driving this class forth. The art of wheel building is more than a niche of bicycle mechanics. It’s more even than the crucial ethos of salvage, repair, and reuse we uphold. It is a sanctuary, a to create our dreams — to such creation as no factory line can offer.
This Wheel Building course is typically held only a couple times a year. More regularly, you’ll find beginner and intermediate classes: Basic Maintenance, Build-a-Bike, and Gear & Brake Clinics. For youth ages 9-13, our summer camps are currently open for registration. Instagram is the best place to learn which of our classes are coming up — come join us, when the time feels right.
There is always more to create, more to learn, and more beauty just waiting to be uncovered.