Quick and dirty wheel (re)building

I rebuilt the rear wheel on my wife’s Ron Kitching last night. When we bought it on eBay about 6 months ago it came with a mixed pair of wheels plus a few other “homebrew” oddities, but overall it’s pretty original and just needed some TLC to return to being a very sweet little bike.

On the front was a classic Mavic MA40 700c rim with the old red diamond logo, laced to an Azzurro hub. Not been able to find out anything about the hub but it looks identical to a Campagnolo Record of the same era (early 1970’s), with an oil cap and classic low flange design.

The rear on the other hand had a Mavic Module 3 rim, laced to a “real” Campagnolo hub, with a Sachs-Maillard 7 speed block. The Module 3 is a decent rim, double eyeleted with a bare aluminium finish and the later Mavic “mountain  range” logo. But it looks very plain when compared to the charcoal grey anodised finish of the MA40 and the elegant diamond logo. I am pretty sure the MA40 is the original rim for the bike, plus it looks better so I resolved to find another MA40 rim to match the front.

After a bit of eBay trawling I picked up a lone MA40 rim with matching red diamond logo, laced to a Pelissier front hub (lovely hub by the way). That would do nicely and I’m sure I can use the hub one day. I may even lace it back onto the Module 3.

A closer examination of the rear wheel showed it has definitely been rebuilt, and not very well either – the Module 3 has absolutely no wear on the braking surfaces, plus it has been laced off-centre, the rim wobbled gently but distinctly up and down with each revolution. Amazingly it wasn’t perceptible when riding at lower speeds, but it is clearly unacceptable to ride with a “clown wheel”. It was also not dished correctly, with the rim sitting distinctly off to the left.

On Saturday I decided to do a “quick and dirty” re-rim job using the MA40 I had found. I took the donor wheel apart and bundled up the spokes for possible future re-use. I cleaned and checked the rim which is in excellent condition although irritatingly, a lighter shade of grey than the original front rim. Oh well, it’ll do. I then taped it to the Module 3 in the position I wanted it. As the donkey who laced up that wheel hadn’t even managed to line the rim and hub logos up properly, I corrected that first.

Once the rims were taped together, I loosened off all the spoke nipples on the Module 3. Then I started to transfer the spokes one by one to the MA40, ending up with the MA40 loosely spoked to the hub and the Module 3 held on with tape. I then untaped the Module 3 and put it in my ever expanding spares box (it’s a decent vintage rim). At this stage I had my wheel ready to be trued and tensioned.

Now I could see why the previous person had finished with a “clown wheel” laced off-centre. About 4 spokes had been replaced, and with 2.0mm gauge in place of the original 1.8mm. Worse, they seemed to be about 2mm longer than the rest. And to cap it off I suspect a few of the left and right spokes had been accidentally swapped (different lengths for offset wheel). A bit of a mess.

Anyway there was enough thread depth on all the spokes for me to get away with it as it was. I replaced the spoke nipples (ancient and well rounded, presumably from being tightened with a pipe wrench!) with a spare set I had lying about, taking care to identify the 1.8mm and 2.0mm spokes.

Given the crazy spoke lengths I took care to get it true right from the start. I have to say I am getting damn good at this (and I did say it, several times. I even had a(nother) celebratory beer). Anyway, a few beers later and we had a lovely true wheel, perfectly dished and nearly a perfect match for the front wheel.

I know I should have taken the whole wheel apart and matched up the spokes, plus I should have replaced the odd 2.0mm ones. But an old bike, unrestored, is the sum of its history. I prefer to work with what is there within reason, but get it right. This wheel will be good for many years now, even though not perfect. Well that’s my excuse anyway. In reality I wanted to finish it now rather than have to wait to order 4 new spokes.

So yes I broke some rules, but that wheel is true, strong and evenly tensioned. I really am getting pretty good at this (and I’m feeling warm and self congratulatory after a few beers).

On the subject of perfect wheels, I just stumbled across this excellent blog – Wheelfanatyk. Loads of useful looking tips for extra finesse in wheel building. I look forward to reading it at length.

UPDATE: Tip 6 is brilliant. I’ll do that next time. I may even rebuild the Kitching wheel again and I have been shamed at my rough and ready approach.

Ron Kitching

Ron Kitching was apparently a big name in UK cycling in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. He started as a star racer and ended up establishing a massive cycle components business (“Ron Kit”) which was based in Harrogate, Yorkshire. The Cyclists Touring Club holds an annual ride through the North Yorkshire Moors in his honour. So what, you say.

Well I didn’t know this stuff either but my wife, who also grew up in Harrogate, has been looking for a restoration project as well. She probably got fed up with me blathering on about the Carlton/Dawes/Falcon.

Ron Kitching 12 speed

My wife is quite petite so she has to be picky about getting a really small frame. These don’t come up on eBay every day, but last week we found a lovely little Ron Kitching bike with 20″ frame dating from about 1968-1970 or so. So we did some quick Google searching and discovered all this about the man himself, which, combined with the good price and the size of the bike meant we bought it.

Apparently although Ron wasn’t a frame builder he had the best contacts in the industry so he knew some of the best frame builders. As he imported the best kit, his own named bikes were always very well specified. That alone seemed a good reason to buy one and it’s been a good decision.

Nice lugs!

We got it surprisingly cheap and it’s really pretty good. It’s Reynolds 531 butted tubing (frame, forks and stays). There’s quite a bit of chrome, on the rear stays, the forks and the fork crowns and front lugs, all very nice and in pretty good order. The paint is OK, a bit scratched in places but respectable looking. Likewise the decals aren’t bad either.

Groupset is mainly Campagnolo but some bits have been changed over time so it’s a bit of a “bitzer” at the moment. It has rather tired looking Shimano 105 brake levers from probably the 1990’s, connected to (probably original) Universal single pivot sidepull brakes with a nice quick release arrangement. They work alright but lack the power of a twin pivot brake.

The front derailleur is Shimano 600 onto some 80’s vintage Italian cranks that are OK but look a bit tatty. The bottom bracket is new but looks wrong. It is way too wide and looks like Shimano from the spline pattern. That would be a JIS square taper and chances are the Italian made cranks are ISO square taper, so they’ll not be sitting properly on the Shimano BB. The whole thing works but looks wrong and probably has a bad chainline as a result. I wonder if this is anything to do with the fitment of the obviously wrong Shimano front derailleur as more reach would have been needed for the cranks. This in itself has had a knock-on effect as it’s got a typically Shimano high mounted clamp, which is therefore on top of the seat tube decal which has suffered as a result.

Campagnolo components

The rear derailleur is still campy and looks original and in lovely condition, as are the hubs, gear levers and cable clamps (embossed and chromed). It has a Cinelli stem and probably Cinelli bars also, and some sort of Italian made alloy seat post but it’s tired looking so we can’t tell what it is.

The headset (1″ threaded) doesn’t quite fit properly so we can only assume it’s been changed at some stage. Basically it’s a few millimetres too tall for the fork so the lock nut only gets onto a couple of threads, so it doesn’t really hold. We may be able to swap it with the one I bought for my Falcon if that is any shorter.

Mavic wheels

Wheels are 700c Mavic rims on unidentified but matching alloy hubs (possibly Mavic also?). The front rim seems to have been replaced (or maybe the other way round). Both are Mavic and look decent. Tyres are nice traditional looking gumwalls in good condition. The 6 speed freewheel block is Sachs-Maillard in excellent condition.

Overall the bike was an utter bargain. It even came with (oldish) Look cleated pedals which happen to take the same cleats as my wife’s other road bike, her Bianchi (yes we have 2 of them).

She had to do some reassembly and bolt tightening today before she could take it out for a first ride. One surprise was the AF standard Allen keys, it’s been years since I saw these. All mine are metric (haven’t done anything AF for years) so we’ll have to get some. In the meantime she managed to work around it using near equivalent torx head sockets. No big issue as the allen head bolts are a bit bashed anyway, clearly others too have been using metric tools on them. However we’ll pick up an AF Allen key set for it and maybe fit some cleaner bolts eventually.

So, the test ride. Once the seat had been moved forward (it was right back, clearly someone too tall had this bike before), it was comfortable enough and she has just enough standing clearance over the bar. After a couple of short runs and some adjustments she took it out for a half hour ride and returned apparently pleased with it. She tells me it is very smooth and supple over bumps, even compared to her Bianchi which has carbon forks and stays. It bodes well for the other projects we have on the way.

Now I have to get back to my projects and leave her to this one…

A bit more Kitching info: http://www.classicrendezvous.com/British_isles/MKM/MKM_main.htm