A job postponed

I recently was offered a part in a delightful project, the restoration of an iconic race bike to its showroom-new condition.  It was a model and year of bicycle that I lusted after when it was new and to this day regret never owning. I was asked to build the wheels for this bike, and was honored to be chosen for that request.

I had to turn this job, though, because it was not in the best interests of the customer.

The customer a collector who devotes a lot to restoring a bicycle to the condition it was in on the day it was made. Projects like this can take years and untold amounts of money.  It is a labor of love that can produce stunning results. The collector goes to great length to find exactly the right parts in new condition.

How exact is “exactly the right part?” is the barrier this job ran up against.

The job called for a certain brand and model of spokes that have not been readily available for 30 years. The customer had found some, but they are too long. I’m not quite sure how much too long, but they are just long enough to be out of my confidence range.

I do not have his rims in front of me, so I was not able to do exact measurements, but there is a range of effective rim diameters (ERD) that covers all classic tubular rims. I ran his spoke length through two reliable spoke length calculators, and his spokes are a minimum of 2 mm too long and more likely 3 mm long. I am not comfortable with spokes more than 1.5 mm too long or too short.

These spokes are new in the box, and cannot be replaced at a reasonable cost if I build the wheel and find that the length is beyond the range that I can comfortably use, I can neither replace them with spokes of the correct length nor return them to the customer as “new in the box.”

The spokes in question are also chrome plated. Of all of the types of spokes that can be cut to length with a Phil Wood spoke machine, plated spokes are conspicuously absent.

In the end, the customer decided to keep looking until he found exactly the right spokes.