Earlier this week I got my first flat tire on my stock coker. When I arrived home from work that evening I had only intended to fix the flat but before I knew it the entire wheel had been unbuilt. It was almost like I was hypnotized into rebuilding the thing.
I had a Schwinn type hub that is considerably wider than the stock hub. I decided to use it instead.
First problem. The spoke holes in my new hub were too small for the coker spokes. This was remedied with the help of a handheld power drill and a 1/8" drill bit.
The wheel went back together without any problem. There is almost no extra space between the crank/frame/hub intersection. Very close quarters. In fact, it almost looks like the frame is now rubbing on the hub. Only after careful examination did I determine that nothing is actually interfering.
I began tensioning the spokes and the rim is reasonably true (given the limits of the cheap steel rim).
After reading a recent post by John Childs I became nervous, however, that I have over-tensioned the spokes.
Is there an convenient, objective way to determine what is “too much”? What is the effect of over tightening the spokes?
I remember from many years ago when mountain biking was just beginning to be popular there were several companies that were creating mtb rims from road rims that were cut and re-rolled down to a smaller size. Has this been tried in reverse for coker rims? For example could you take a couple of Alex DX-32s, cut them and carefully roll them out to make a 36" rim?
Also, is the airfoil (?) rim available separately somewhere? How much?
I think it’s kind of a shame that you went to a fair amount of effort but rebuilt on the old rim. The airfoil is available at unicycle.com
and it works great. But if you want a lot of tension, you should be using real spokes as well… and so it goes.
I certainly agree that riding is better than not riding. And I put something like 4000 miles on my original Coker rim and it still works. My wife is using it now. I just meant that you would’ve ended up happier long run with the Airfoil.
Unicycle.com doesn’t sell the real spokes. Tom Miller (The Unicycle Factory) makes the custom cut spokes. They’re stainless steel. Very nice. But then you need special nipples to fit the special spokes… and so it goes…
You can get the special nipples from Semcycle. They’re the nipples they use for their big wheels.
Yeah, there’s a lot to this custom Coker wheel business. It drags you in deeper and deeper.
Yeah, ain’t that the truth. JC again speaks gospel. You can pay and mess with the details, or PAY and not mess with the details. Either way, Caddies don’t come cheap.
Sure. When you begin to get too high, the rim will either become untrue in two large waves or the effects of tightening and loosening spokes will get a little weird. Back off about 1/2 turn and you’re about right for that rim. For the stock Coker rim, that point is very, very low.
Leaving the spokes too tight will also make the wheel unstable and it will taco easier. Too loose has the same effect.
