I'm building my first wheel from scratch, using the info on Sheldon Brown and other sites. It's a single speed wheel with a flip flop hub. The problem is that, having laced the wheel and done a preliminary tighten, the spokes inside the hub flange (the trailing spokes) are getting pretty tight, while the spokes on the outside of the flanges (the leading spokes) are still really baggy. Is this normal? I'm a bit concerned that I may have done one of the following:

– Laced the spokes one hole along from where they're meant to be. I was under the impression that if they're offset to the right of the rim, you lace them to the right hand side of the hub – is this correct?

– Ordered the wrong length of spokes.

– Ordered all one length of spoke when I should have got half slightly shorter.

Off the top of my head, assuming you're aiming for a 3-cross wheel, it sounds like you may have the trailing spokes correct and the leading spokes in a 2-cross configuration. Carefully compare the lacing on the one you're building with a wheel you know is right.

What doctorrad said Ant. Bell me if you'd like some help.

Ditto. For three cross, there will be four holes between spokes on the same side that cross.

Had a quick look at another wheel this morning, and it seems that I'd been crossing them over the first two spokes but not under the third, as per Mike_Check's post on the other thread. Cheers for the help all. 🙂

Repeat after me –

"Over, Over, Under, In."

😀