The Bicycle Wheel 3rd Edition
by Jobst Brandt

Our Price: $24.99
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $16.97 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of The Bicycle Wheel 3rd Edition

Book Review: The standard on wheelbuilding - but will it stay that way?
Summary: 4 Stars

This book discusses how the wheel works, forces on the wheel, materials and designs of rims, spokes and hubs, truing, repair, and wheel building.

The book itself is nicely bound and printed, with extremely clear diagrams. Space is left on pages when necessary to ensure that the text doesn't get ahead of the figures, which can be rather annoying in something like a repair book.

For the most part, I am glad to have purchased this book, but was disappointed to find that a lot of the information in the book, such as wheel truing, materials, component design, and wheel building of a conventional 3-cross wheel, can be gleaned from the internet from such sites as those of Sheldon Brown. Some of the chapters in this book, such as the results of a finite element model analysis of the forces in a wheel, seem to be more unique to this book. Moroever, it is difficult to lay the computer down on the floor next to the wheel that you're building to guide you step-by-step, and the book had better illustrations than those I've seen on the web. Also, the information I mention above seems scattered around the internet, and this book brings them together in one reference.

For those who are expecting that The Bicycle Wheel will lead them to build exotic designs with the latest materials and lacing patterns, you will be disappointed. The author is a staunch believer that the bicycle wheel has been nearly perfected in the 3-cross lacing pattern with steel, cylindrical spokes, and that any "improvements" result in very minimal performance increase at the expense of stength. Brandt states, "In most cases [sic] it is best to build standard wheels - standard wheels, but good ones - and not yield to fashion, folklore, or advertising." (Oh yeah - there are missing commas - but that seems to be par for most editing these days.) Later, he states, "They [24-spoke, radially-laced, small-flange-hub, lightweight rimmed wheels - like the Mavic Cosmoses on my bike] lack the long-term durability of road wheels..., " and in the section on Wheel Design, "Cyclists who choose to build wheels often want something more than ordinary,...It may be disappointing to discover that [sic] 'it's all been done before' [sic] and that conventional wheels are a result of a hundred years of refinement. The true contribution for the new wheel builder is to build conventional wheels exceptionally well."

Even though this book does have good figures, there are a few places where there are none, and where I wish one were included to help illustrate what's being discussed. One such place is the section on static loads in the tire and rim (pp. 14, 15).

In the final chapter, Brandt discusses the finite element computer analysis used to calculate forces in the wheel under different conditions. (Techniques with which I am familiar in electromagnetic applications). The discussion is in-depth enough that reader without experience in numerical methods will be completely lost (it even mentions details such as the method used to solve the matrix equation), but would leave someone with such knowledge (such as me) wanting. Little is lost by the one who does not have the math background, but this book could be more useful to mathematicians among readers if it had another page or two with a diagram, and the equations used to fill the matrix and vectors.

It may seem that I have a lot of complaints, but overall, I thought this was a very good book, and believe that a complete library on cycling should include it. The only other book that I've seen on wheelbuilding that seems to be gaining popularity is Shraner's The Art of Wheelbuilding: A Bench Reference for Neophytes, Pros and Wheelaholics. This book is cleverly spiral-bound to allow it to lay flat as you build your wheels. I have not seen this book in person, but plan to review it in the future.

Automotive Books

• Subjects > Professional & Technical > Automotive
• Transportation
• Sports & Outdoors > Individual Sports > Cycling
• Travel > Specialty Travel > Adventure > Cycling