[peter6061]

So a recent post reminded me of a discussion I've had with friends / fellow mechanics, etc,...

Is building a wheel for a bicycle art? Don't get me wrong, as a cyclist I think the wheel is a beautiful object, and a photograph of one might hang on my wall if taken in a way to make it look nice. I have pictures of bicycles all over the house and consider them something of an art form (the picture).

But is the wheel actually art? I say, "No." It is purely functional and serves a direct purpose. It is laced together in a particular method established by people years before most of us began building wheels. Techniques have changed, but the overall design has not.

I've built several hundred wheels and not in one case did I take it upon myself to change the design of the wheel to suit some aesthetic purpose. Each wheel was laced according to the rider's needs and built to last.

This was an ongoing discussion between myself and another shop owner years ago when he worked for me as a mechanic. Neither of us could convince the other of our opinion. After moving to the DC area, I took a trip up to Philidelphia with my wife where we visited the museum from Rocky. (sorry I don't remember the name only that Rocky ran up the steps and cheered at the top,... funny to watch some tourists do it as well. I'm sure the locals get a kick out of it.) Anyway, while wandering through the museum, I spotted a piece of 'art'. It was a bicycle fork with a wheel in it. It reminded my of our our discussion.

The next time I saw my old friend I had to mention my findings to him. We both got a chuckle out of it, though he still maintains his opinions as I do.

So what does everyone here think?

 

[binary visions]

IMO:

Wheelbuilding is the precise assembly of components into a whole. It's no more an "art" than building up a frame. There are quantitative measurements that you can take to determine the wheel's strength and potential longevity, and those measurements would transfer over to, say, a machine that could build wheels.

The only reason machine built wheels don't last as long as human built ones is because of the lack of investment in the wheelbuilding machines. A machine could be programmed and built to check spoke and nipple tension, wheel roundness, rim trueness (is that a word?), and to pre-stress the spokes, and it could do it far more precisely than any human.

People who are supposedly "artists" in this field are simply more experienced and more inclined to notice the subtle differences in wheel tension or trueness (there's that word again). I think the only reason people call it art, is simply a lack of understanding - there is no creativity or artistry involved in wheelbuilding, any more than there's creativity or artistry involved in installing a bottom bracket...

 

[llkoolkeg]

It is not an art in the strict sense of the word, but finding someone who has studied, practiced, experimented, refined and attempted to perfect the process is akin to finding a true artist. Perhaps a scientist would be a more accurate descriptor, though. The same argument has been taken over the playing of chess- look how much money and computing power are necessary to create a machine capable of besting a true champion! I have never had a machine-built wheel last as long or well as ones built by this guy Ron(who I can no longer locate) even though they contain components of supposedly higher strength and quality. For some reason, I CAN NOT knock his wheels out of true, e.g. the 32H Hayes/RhynoXLs he built for me have lasted w/o truing for several years, while the Atomic DHRs, TrailPimps, XT/521s, Hayes/Mammoths and other "beefier" wheels I've purchased since have all been either obliterated or liquidated out of frustration. The same was true of the XT/517s he built for me in '96. I still have them and they are still true even though I have never touched them. I don't know what the farg he does during the building of these wheels, but the quality of the build is head and shoulders above any other hand or machine builds I have ever paid for.

 

[RhinofromWA]

Science....

If you artistic freedom in wheels you have a bad wheel. If you have a well built wheel it is done repetively and with reason. Anything else would be a weeker wheel for the sake of "art" and would be a bad wheel.

What can we learn from this? Artists are dumb scientists.

 

[-dustin]

art...

 

[Mackie]

Um, how about option 3 - wheelbuilding is a craft.
Wheelbuilders are craftsmen, like cabinet makers.They are not artists, they are not scientists, but they do a semi-creative job that has to look good & work well within the confines of a given environment.

Anyone with the equipment can build wheels (or hang cabinets), but to do it well, and quickly, and with some functional flair takes a craftsman.

-Mackie (Scientist, hack wheelbuilder).

 

[peter6061]

Um, how about option 3 - wheelbuilding is a craft.
Wheelbuilders are craftsmen, like cabinet makers.They are not artists, they are not scientists, but they do a semi-creative job that has to look good & work well within the confines of a given environment.

Anyone with the equipment can build wheels (or hang cabinets), but to do it well, and quickly, and with some functional flair takes a craftsman.

-Mackie (Scientist, hack wheelbuilder).

I like the idea, but someone building a cabinet has the ability to add in his or her own uniqueness to the design of the cabinet. For instance, take a cabinet done in an 'art noveau' style. It's still functional, but beautiful. Is it art? I saw an exhibit on them at the Smithsonion here in DC a few years ago, but I agree with you that it is a craft.

I'm not saying that wheels are not unique in each build, but I would prefer to consider that wheels are either built properly or inproperly(or some variation in between based on the amount of knowledge and ability of the builder)

I guess more what I'm trying to get across is that there is a science to building a wheel. There is only one way. Sure you can lace it radial, 1x, 2x, 3x, etc,... do some kind of twist(dumb imo), crows foot, 3x one side radial the other, but none of these serve any artistic purpose. Most of them I don't think serve any purpose as I usually convince my customers to stick with a 3x/3x setup nowadays. Beyond that, you can change the guage of the spoke for strength, weight savings, etc,... but these are also functional reasons. The closest thing there is to art or creativity in building a wheel is playing with the COLOR of the nipples/spokes/rims/hubs and maybe putting decals on them if that's your thing.

In addition, if someone wants black spokes on one side and silver spokes on the other, I'll just switch spoke boxes. It has more to do with the customer's creativity than mine. My responsibility to the customer is making sure they get a strong, well built wheel that will function with regard to the customer and it's intended purpose.

 

[llkoolkeg]

The closest thing there is to art or creativity in building a wheel is playing with the COLOR of the nipples/spokes/rims/hubs and maybe putting decals on them if that's your thing.

In addition, if someone wants black spokes on one side and silver spokes on the other, I'll just switch spoke boxes. It has more to do with the customer's creativity than mine. My responsibility to the customer is making sure they get a strong, well built wheel that will function with regard to the customer and it's intended purpose.

Hahaha...the very first wheelset I had built was a 32H XT/517 with black 15ga spokes and alternating red-gold-black-green annodized nipples...kind of a reggae theme to go with my Salsa reggae skewers. I'd have had the King reggae hubs, too, had I not been so comparatively poor. I grew up a bit after I realized they cost significantly more and worked significantly less well...I bent/broke the spokes and rounded off the lame aluminum nipples when they seized a bit in the Winter road salt. Since then, silver SG14s 3x brass w/32H(or preferably 36H) has been my boring yet functional staple.

 

[BigStonz]

I'd go with craft. There are parts that have have to go together in a specific fashion, but the end result can vary significantly due to experience and skill.

 

[sleepinggiant]

I don't thing the end result (the wheel) is a piece of art, but the process of wheel building is an art form. If you have ever watched a really good wheel builder, there is a certain grace and style to how the wheel goes together. Sure, the calculations of spoke length and spoke tension are scientific, but the process of lacing and bringing a wheel up to tension is an art form.

 

[rfemurfx]

"but the process of lacing and bringing a wheel up to tension is an art form."

"I say, "No." It is purely functional and serves a direct purpose. It is laced together in a particular method established by people years before most of us began building wheels. Techniques have changed, but the overall design has not."

this has been my dilema with the bike industry for a very long time.... the thing is that bikes are seen as toys(from an outsider point of view) because they really are. most of us do not use our bikes for pure transportation or utilitarian means. because of this there tends to be mysteries with all this new technology. no wheels are not new, what i mean is that there is ONE specific way to build a wheel as there is one specific way to disassemble and reassemble a suspension fork. too many mechanics come up with their own little methods or more acurately their little experiments. then it gets passed down as a proper way to do a task. for example:

"when installing new housing and cable use oil or grease to lube the inside of the housing"

i am sure everybody reading this has done it (including me). but how many of you have looked at your cable and housing after a few dusty or muddy rides? have you ever wondered why the inner wire comes out of the housing full of muck?

there is a specific way to build a wheel - and I dont mean whether you lace it one spoke at a time or drop all spokes- i mean once you begin to tension the wheel there is a very specific way to do it in order to keep "optimal" strength of all the components. a Mechanic builds your wheel. a good mechanic understands the purpose of the wheel. a craftsman understands the purpose of each peice in the wheel and sees how each performs their own specific task in order to make a structure. like a suspension brige.

 

[HippieKai]

i think they are a bit of both...a mechine can build a wheel, but a well practiced hand can build a great wheel.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Religion.

 

[Kornphlake]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say art. My reason being that the definition of art given above is flawed. Art doesn't have to be visual, it can be music you hear, food you taste, why not something you can feel as stiffness or even something you can't immediately percieve such as durability. Saying that any of the industrial arts such as welding, machining or sheetmetal fabrication aren't art because the worker just follows a print or an industrial standard to make the same thing time and time again is taking all credibility out of the trade. Have you ever tried to whittle your initials into a tree trunk, try doing it in 15 different trees so that the initials all appear identical. A pocket knife is just as difficult to control as a paint brush, similarly a wrench or any other tool requires some level of precision and skill. I like the word craft as mentioned above, the craftsman uses an artistic technique to apply a scientific process. For example a painter is asked to paint a portrait of a person, the painter uses certain techniques to make the 2 dimensional paint appear to have 3 dimensions, the same can be done by scanning a photograph, running it through a filter in photoshop and printing it but this isn't art it's a scientific process automatically applied to a medium. The welder is asked to join two tubes, he uses certain techniques to ensure the weld material flows evenly, penetrates sufficiently and doesn't overheat the tubes, this can be done by machine and this is one of the few cases where I'd consider a machine capable of producing art, the reason a robot is able to produce beautiful welds is because somebody took the time to build a fixture to hold the parts in an exact location, figured out the exact rate at which the robot should move, the temperature of the spark, the rate the filler material is added and such, this is where in my mind the art comes from. I guess the same could be said of photochopping, but taking into consideration that the programming is an art. The wheelbuilder is asked to build a wheel with a certain number of spokes a certain type of nipple, a specific rim and hub, the wheelbuilder must decide how to prep the spokes, how to lace them to the rim, how to tension the spokes, and retension the spokes, and retension the spokes, and true the wheel without making the tension uneven. Although the process may be science, I propose that the technique to apply the process is artistic.

 

[largextracheese]

I'd have to say art, purely based upon the fact that a debate is happening over it. Art is peception, and everyones perception is different. That's why we all don't like the same music, clothes, the wife's decoration of the house. It's all art on some level. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the word art? Probably paintings? Well, paintings are reproduced and hung on walls across the world. Is it still art? Yes. I imagine the first wheel ever built was keenly stared upon moreso as art than utility. The fact that 10 zillion wheels have been built after the fact doesn't change it's original beauty. It just comes down to perception.

 

[me89]

id say its both art and science. i say its art because of the fact that to me a wheel doesnt have to be built different, have different color spokes and nipples, or have 36h rims or 6h rims. it still fasinates me that something as light and what seems to be fragile can withstand so much abuse. its amazing to me how they work and how the hub keeps it all solid and held in place.

science. its a science because of the fact that it involves numbers and patterns to build up a wheel. its a science in the fact that it is repeated over and over and can be masterd and there is no difference between one spoke and another.

so my vote goes to both art and science.

 

[ChrisRobin]

I'd say it's an art in a sense where being systematic doesn't always work. Some rims aren't 100% straight out of the box so a lot of finesse, experience and skill are needed in order to shape a perfect wheel.

 

[Spitfired]

I would say it is the art of science.

 

[PatBranch]

I too think it is an art. I hung my old wheel on the wall in my room. It has dings, flatspots, and chips in the ceramic coating. It is an art because I took the time to thrash it. No other wheel is exactly the same.

It came w/ my level betty and was weak (xc bontrager rim). My Level betty is cracked on the bottom of the down tube near the weld. I am going to hang that up too.