Why isn’t there a wheel building reality TV show competition, a la GBBO, or Blown Away! on Netflix?

Wheel building would be the perfect mix of excitement, challenge, and emotional roller coaster as 12 contestants battle to build the perfect wheel!

There would be a weekly “challenge” where contestants would have to build a wheel against the clock – 32 spoke/3 cross one week, radial the next, and so-on.

And there would also of course be a creative challenge where they have to build a wheelset that not only is circular, but which also expresses some part of their emotional life journey. Perhaps a snowflake spoke pattern, letting them talk about the inherent strength and fragility of the bicycle wheel.

I think I would be the old duffer who goes out in the first episode after finding he has built his wheel with all the spokes back-to-front and the hub logo misaligned.

😂

You’ll never get it commissioned unless someone has their genitals on display.

I’ve watched blown away. It was I treating seeing what you can imagine in glass.

Every week you would just get a wheel. A round one. With some celebrity interest it might do a 20 slot once.

I can’t imagine watching it twice.

Sounds good, to make it more challenging you could have the following rounds

Round 1 build with j bend spokes
Round 2 build with flat straight pull spokes
Round 3 build with round straight pull spokes

For the final round build with round straight pull spokes with nipple washers and on one of those stupid hubs that use nipples on the hub end as well as at the rim!

And there would also of course be a creative challenge

The ‘Re-inventing the wheel’ section?

Wheel building is too easy to make any sort of show out of it and the finished result is just a wheel. Any variations of that just makes an ugly wheel (i.e snowflake lacing)

Funny you should mention this. I’ve considered doing similar at work as an analogy for what they’re currently expecting from us.

Just dump the component parts on my line managers desk and tell him to build a wheel. All the information is out there somewhere, I’d tell him.

The spokes would be the wrong length and there wouldn’t be enough and the rim would have a flat spot in it. If he ever actually managed to get a wheel built, I could then take great joy in telling him that was not the required lacing pattern and that the average tension and tension variance were out of spec. If he comes back from that, I could then point out that I wanted the drive side pushing spokes on the inside of the flange etc.

Might not work on TV but it would make me feel better.

You’ll never get it commissioned unless someone has their genitals on display.

What if they just show their nipples?

You joke, but I’ve seen a home-brewing one in production. If there’s a hobby that really won’t translate well to the TV tallent show format, it’s brewing.

The beards will be epic though.

Love it.

😹

#nakedcelebritywheelbuildingonicefactor

In season 1 episode 2, one of the contestants talks to one of the presenters (could we get Noel Fielding?) about how important this is to them.

The judges make seemingly innocuous comments about the importance of setting up the truing stand properly. “Measure twice, true once” one of them remarks significantly.

As the clock ticks down, he sees that his dishing is completely out – he setup the stand wrong. Frantically he tries to dish the wheel across in the last remaining minutes, with Noel making encouraging remarks, but there’s not enough time, and the wheel goes hopelessly wonky.

He leaves the show, but gets a hug from the other contestants who say how much they will miss him (if anyone can even remember his name in a week’s time).

We meet him again in the season finale reunion, having grown an impressive beard while cycling around the world on a hand-welded bike with an offset rear triangle.

For a real challenge try blindfolded wheel building – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvbCUHJR668

Go all in and have bike building. Steel in series one, carbon two, moving on to ti, bamboo and other quirkier materials in a desperate bid to keep viewing figures up

If you actually want viewing figures at a decent level, and need to include bikes, it’ll have to be some kind of Death Race 2021 where drivers get to knock cyclists over. Points awarded for the type of cyclist, old bid on a sit-up-and-beg being the lowest. Ratings through the roof.

What if they just show their nipples?

@nickjb 👏👏👏

Every week you would just get a wheel. A round one. With some celebrity interest it might do a 20 slot once.

The tension would keep the viewers gripped.

The tension would keep the viewers gripped.

They could capitalize on the early viewer enthusiasm by streaming all episodes now on ITV Hub.

Wheel building is too easy

Yes, when everything works as it should. My last one took 16 calendar days when everything went wrong – wrong rim, wrong spokes, lacing errors, wrong truing stand, wrong hub parts and all the minor things in between.

You’ll need a pro wheelbuilder, and then someone from the cycling world who can wear their heart on their sleeve, maybe even get a slightly teary eye at an appropriate moment

‘Oh my, the anodising on the hub is simply……<chokes> beautiful!’

‘The sound of the freehub……it’s just so <chokes> buzzy!’

etc.

Haven’t heard anything from Cavendish for ages now, does he even ride any more?

For the final round build with round straight pull spokes with nipple washers and on one of those stupid hubs that use nipples on the hub end as well as at the rim!

Nah. Berd spokes, Fastest build wins. Will need to be a three parter.

In Season 1 episode 3 of “True!” the exciting new reality TV show, tensions run high after one contestant rounds off one aluminium spoke nipple too many and hurls his wheel across the studio, narrowly missing this week’s guest wheel judge, Roger Musson.

Warning: strong language, viewer discretion is advised.