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Building a Bike

A good guide for understanding the parts of the bike: Two Wheeled Wanderer – Bike Anatomy

Frame

I bought this frame at the Bike Edmonton Community Workshop for 47.25 CA$. The shopkeepers were very nice and made sure I got a frame that was my size.
I was excited to start working on it, so the same evening I scraped off the old stickers and decals.
Then I had to leave Edmonton for a month, but it gave me time to plan what kind of components I wanted to get.

Old Paint Removal

I wanted to do custom decals on my bike, but I did not like the blue color it was in. I decided to go for a black satin finish, with decals that will be revealed later. I disassembled the fork – unscrewed the bearing casings which hold it in place.

New paint means old paint needs to be removed. I started sanding with 60 grit sandpaper – it was quite tedious and frustrating around the welds. It was kind of an awful experience doing it by hand – see pictures:
My advice would be either: (1) if you have access to sanding equipment (some engineering lab, or a maker space at a university) it will make your life a lot easier; or (2) decide that a rough scuff-up is good enough and the paint will hopefully stick and hold.

Building the Front Wheel

The weather was not looking great for painting outside, but in the meantime I got a shipment of some rims, spokes, and the front dynamo (!) hub – good timing to do some progress.
Being the naïve person that I am, I searched up a random tutorial which showed how to lace the spokes without mentioning any kind of prep, or anything else that's important. I followed it along, but realized I made a mistake more than half-way in.
My mistake – the spokes cross right in front of the inner tube valve hole, meaning the pump wouldn't have space to be attached. Apparently, H PLUS SON Archetype spoke holes are slightly off center, and seemingly opposite-patterned compared to the modern standard wheel; I had to lace the spokes slightly differently, as explained in this answer: Bicycles StackExchange – How to properly lace spokes in rim with offset holes. In addition to this, I was hunting for a tutorial that would explain this detail, but no luck. I just switched to a different tutorial that was more detailed, to see if there's anything else that I was missing. I followed this one: YouTube – Park Tool: How To Build A Bicycle Wheel. Did you lube your spokes? I did:
This new tutorial was much better, mentioning details such as lubing the threads, how to make the hub logo align with the rim logo, and others. However, a neat trick I learnt from the old tutorial, when you can no longer screw the nipples by hand – use a spoke as a holder to put it in place:
After some fiddling around and triple-checking – voilà! It even fit in the fork:

Paint and Decals

The rainy clouds cleared up in a few days, and I was excited to start painting. I sanded the bike again, this time with 220 grit. I tried to be more thorough around the welds, but once again, it was quite frustrating. The paint I got:
I first sprayed it with a few coats of the Self-Etching Primer (gray-green), and waited for approx. 4 hours before painting. The balcony became a paint shop:
The painting is quite tedious. My advice here would be to get some paint that also works as a primer (and maybe a gloss as well) – one bike shop keeper told me they used that kind of thing and it all worked out well. Perhaps there's a tradeoff between speed and quality. We shall see in a few years...

Just in time, my decals order was ready for pickup, and...
They came in bent, creased, and blurry – very dissapointing. The product I ordered was Staples Permanent Decals, and, honestly, it was a horrible experience. Firstly, I tried to email them (twice!) to ask about the type of paint they use on their decals, whether they would fade or blur when in contact with water – both times I got a (pre-written? AI-generated? automatic?) reply ignoring my questions completely and referring me to the printing store homepage. Maybe this was a foreshadowing of the horrors to come. Secondly, instead of allowing you to submit a ready-made PDF or SVG design, they only allow you to submit designs through Canva. This means you never know what actually goes to the printer – whatever rasterisation, reformatting, recomputation, overhead, etc. happens because of Canva. Thirdly, the standard wait time to pick up at the store is 4-6 business days – I got an email confirmation after 8 full business days (or 11 calendar days). And after all that – they're blurry, creased, and overall low quality. They, at least, without asking (thank god!), immediately issued a reprint, but alas, my patience had run out, and...
...accepting defeat I knew I wouldn't have the energy nor budget – Staples stole 23.08 CA$ and my sanity – to look for a better option, I still cut them and plastered over my bike.

Despite the dissapointments, it felt very exciting to have a glimpse of what the bike could look like in this new attire.

I wanted to seal the decals under a clear coat, but before that I was making sure they were attached well. The edges showed a bit of white from my amazing cutting skills, so I thought of using a marker to paint over them:
I didn't like how the marker bled into the decal and the frame, so I decided not to follow through with the rest of them.

Building the Rear Wheel

I had to wait a few more days before getting another shipment:
In included the rear hub among other things, so I proceeded to build the rear wheel.
I followed the same video and StackExchange answer as before, to not make the same mistakes. Then I installed the rim tape, which for some reason had a lot of friction, and it was hard to move it once it was on. I used a hex key to align the rim hole to the tape hole.
With this shipment I also had the inner tubes, tires, and cassette, so I proceeded to install them. Thankfully, I had the cassette tool with me:
Now, I got very excited, as I could put both wheels and the saddle on the bike!
By the way, if anyone knows what type of saddle this is, please let me know. The bearings connecting the fork to the frame were a bit dirty, so I cleaned them (with regular dish soap and some hand movement), and drenched them in grease before reassembly. Putting all these on the bike felt ceremonial, so I had to get creative.

First Impressions

Kaip vainikas stogui su pastatytomis gegnėmis – šelmenų balius, arba kazilinės – reikėjo ceremoninio objekto.

Bottom Bracket & Crankset

I looked at the parts I had and it seemed most reasonable to install the bottom bracket and crankset first. Alas, I had no tools. I went back to the Bike Edmonton Community Workshop; it was raining, so the frame is wet in the pictures. My old bottom bracket required a tool with 20 notches, and my new one needed a HollowTech II compatible tool, both of which Bike Edmonton had.
And the natural next step – the crankset & pedals. Once again, Bike Edmonton had the right tool to tighten the crankset.
The wheels are still not trued, and wobble when rotated. This will call for a few hours of patience, and involve a trip to the bike shop (I don't have a truing stand).

Handlebar Upgrade

Probably a Tuesday trip to Bike Edmonton...

Derailleurs & Shifters

Awaiting shifter shipment...

Brakes & Brake Levers

Awaiting brake lever shipment...

Chain Installation and Testing

To do after brakes and derailleurs installed...

Lights

To do after wheel is trued and front brake installed (it uses the same mounting point)...

Future Upgrades

Thank You!

Thank you for reading this blog! Feedback is welcome – feel free to send me an email! Perhaps you see something I missed or assembled incorrectly, or inspired you to do a repair of your own – let me know!

If your bike has an issue and you're in the viscinity – I'd be happy to take a look. Gero ūpo!


Last update: 2026-06-21