I’ve been holding off on some much-needed maintenance on Kuroko while I completed Hornsby. At last I can get started on this project, aided by the fact it’s too hot to ride. The following are all slated for replacement, more or less in order of urgency:

• Brake pads and rotors
• Chain and rear cogs
• Tires

I’ve known the brakes (front in particular) have been due for replacement for a while now. The rotors might have been good for another set of pads but I’d already decided to swap them out, and now because I’ve waited so long the front is badly scored. There’s possibly a bit of life left in the tires (the front more than the rear) and chain, but the cogs may be overdue — there’s been some shifting hesitation with one cog in particular.

Ulterior motive

All of the above is normal wear-and-tear, but the real motivation for the current project is to rebuild the wheels. The hubs will stay but I’ve got a new pair of rims, and of course I’ll have new spokes to go with them.

And with that, the first order of business was to tear down the wheels.

Disassembling the front wheel took more effort than I’d expected. It was a factory-built wheel with aluminum nipples and steel spokes, and it was soon apparent there was some corrosion of the nipples. They all eventually came free, but not without putting up a fight from the start.

As usual I was working with a helper spoke, threaded in from the outside of the rim, to trap the nipples and prevent them falling inside the rim as I unscrewed them. This worked as expected so I was surprised to hear something rattling around inside the rim after removing a few nipples. With the valve hole pointed downwards I gave the rim a shake, and some dried bits of latex fell out. I don’t think that’s what’s making the noise!

I was halfway around the rim before I noticed a small silver washer falling out as I gave the rim a shake. That explains the rattling! The nipples all have washers on them. I was two-thirds of the way around before I figured out that if I turned the wheel over (I work at the top of the rim) before removing the nipple, then the washer would come with it.

After dropping the spoke wrench only a few times (until Nana complained about the banging, in fact), the wheel was fully disassembled. I lined up all the bits and carefully counted 28 spokes, 28 nipples and … er, 26 washers. I’m pretty sure the remaining two are not in the rim, but will be picked up by the vacuum next time I do the floor of the den.

I had a look at the rim after removing all the spokes, and I could plainly see — in addition to the dried latex left over from my tubeless days — small white flecks of aluminum corrosion.

In contrast to the front, the rear spokes were quite a bit tighter but the nipples turned more easily. The nipples were also more deeply threaded onto the spokes, meaning it took many more turns to free them. I’d built this wheel by hand with brass nipples, so there was no corrosion from contact with the steel spokes.

The rim tape (Schwalbe) had come off the rear rim much more easily than on the front (DT Swiss), and that may be part of the reason there was a lot more dried latex in each spoke hole on the rear. In the end, the brass (DT Swiss) nipples from the rear are probably reusable after a good clean-up, but I’ve already thrown away the aluminum nipples from the front.

I remembered just before I began disassembling the front wheel to weigh it, and quite surprisingly I remembered to do the same with the rear. I was surprised the rear was lighter than the front, but then remembered the front has the dynamo, of course. I weighed the wheels without tires, valves or rim tape, so I need to remember to do the same when I build up the new wheels.

Parts list

I’ve got the brake rotors, cogs and chain — I got them some time ago in anticipation of this moment. I’m sure I got the brake pads at the same time but can’t find them now, so a new set is due to arrive today. The new tires should arrive tomorrow.

Some searching quickly brought up a company in Nagoya that has spokes and does their own cutting. So after today’s disassembly, and confirming (for the nth time) that I had the right specs, I placed the order. The site says 1-3 day delivery. Given that today is a holiday, that implies from Wednesday to Friday.