The “Son of Path” will have a set of exciting new wheels. The wheels will be the same size as “Path,” 20 inch, a popular BMX size. The hubs will be state-of-the-art NuVinci CVP hubs. CVP stands for Continuously Variable Planetary gearing. This will provide a 350% range of speeds and the ability to shift while standing still.

Over the past three weeks I have been concentrating on collecting the components needed to assemble the new bicycle. Some of these parts have been the wheel rims and the NuVinci hubs. I tried to purchase spokes for the new wheels and ran into a size problem. The NuVinci hubs are rather large in diameter and consequently the spokes only needed to be 149 mm long. That is about 5 and 7/8 inches long. My solution was to buy a Hozan Spoke Threader and make my own spokes. You cut your spokes to the exact length and the machine rolls a perfect thread at the end of the spoke. I built the first wheel this afternoon using the wheel building instructions on Sheldon Brown’s wonderful legacy site maintained by Harris Cyclery. Sheldon died February 4, 2008 according to a biography story on Wikipedia. The web site at http://sheldonbrown.com/home.html is a wealth of information for bicyclists and bicycle mechanics. I followed the step by step instructions and my wheel has turned out perfect. I will have to repeat the process again tomorrow.

Here are some photographs of the spoke threader and the new wheel.

Gary Dinsmore