Rim Without Spoke Access Holes

How hard/fiddly are these to lace, in reality?

I need to replace a rim but before I order I have the choice of whether to go with access holes or not.

Current build doesn’t have them (not built by me) and I’ve appreciated the benefit of not using rim tape, so I’m tempted to go full rim bed again.

Tape the two rims together and swap the spokes one at a time, using a magnet to drag the nips into position. Will probably need to screw a spoke end into the nipple for the magnet to attract it…could be annoying and not worth the hassle over using rim tape?

nips aren’t magnetic?

looks like a right faff

Their purpose is to take away the mild and easily diy’able but ongoing potential faff of tape, in return for one epic bout of totally rubbish and irritating faff, which you can make someone else do in return for money . I didn’t understand this and did it myself once, never again

To be fair this is partly about the tools and also partly about the rim- I had the official fulcrum nipple installing tool for my old ust fulcrums and that helped, but those were also pretty spacious rims internally and the nipples didn’t always want to get stuck. The last one I did which was a cheap chinese rim was just an absolute pain in the arse. Totally ticked that box of “this isn’t working, and I’m sure I’m doing it right but i’s still not working, then at the exact moment you’re ready to throw it into a volcano and not a second before it suddenly falls into place despite you not doing anything different. And I had to do it 28 times. It’s the first time I’ve ever really felt that 28h was much better than 32 just because of doing it 4 less times.

I’m a big fan of sealed rum beds. I have built 5 Lightbicycle wheels like this and have a couple of Nextie ones waiting for me to get time to build them.

I use a small section of mild steel spoke thread tied to nylon thread.

Drop that in through the required nipple hole and use a magnet to pull it out of the valve hole. Thread the nipple on, pull the thread and it pops out of the nipple hole. Screw on a spoke or as I do, secure with a miniature clothes peg and move on to the next one.

I’ll normally do all this while watching telly. It can be a fairly chill and satisfying process.

One tip, start opposite the valve hole and work back to avoid pulling new nipples over those already installed.

A rining endorsement from @Northwind followed by another from @Onzadog

I’m no further forward, but leaning slightly towards the sealed rim bed – the thread idea is a good one, as is the tip to start opposite the valve hole ?

I have all winter to sort it so can readily leave and come back to it when patience is wearing thin!?

The other thing to bear in mind is how deep the rim is. Too shallow and there isn’t room inside for the nipple to rotate into position. Lightbicycle have a taller limit for this that Nextie in my experience.

56mm so should be enough

More than enough. The cut off is normally mid twenties, then it can get fiddly.

I’ve built a few without spoke holes. I screw a small bolt into the nipple and drag it around with a magnet – no nylon thread etc. It’s a bit of a ballache and takes me 1-1.5 hrs to lace a rim compared to about 10 minutes, but I’ve suffered from bad rim tape before, so feel like it’s worthwhile. It is worth minimising the number of spokes! I’ve gone with 28h for mtb and would chose 24h for road. Carbon rims seem much better suited to low spoke counts. I had to built 32h recently and it was substantially more annoying.

Christ, watchng the PT video up there, what a **** faff. I’ll stick with replacing rim tape every couple of years!!….

It’s a rear road, so 24H – summer bike so no real time constraints and I’ve enjoyed not messing around with tape.

I have an old 50mm tub lying around somewhere so can have a trial run.

sealed rum beds

Sounds like some weird naval punishment from the 19th century.

Ive run Campag and Fulcrum wheels (same company) with the sealed rim bed, makes tubeless much less faff, no chance of the tape peeling, moving or causing any other issues, single spoke/nipple replacement was a doddle

Not sure id like to lace a whole wheel, replacing one was easy enough using a cut down spoke and a magnet

I’ve built a bunch of wheels with sealed beds. I don’t really find them that much more annoying to lace up than regular rims. I don’t think I’d try moving spokes across one at a time though, feels like there’d be too many moving parts, and you’d end up dropping half the nipples inside the rim.