I saw the Wheel Works spoke nipple clamp tool on Rod Bardsley’s Instagram a few months ago. I’d just replaced a spoke in Emma’s wheel and had held the nipple in place with a pair of pliers while I fed the new spoke in and got the thread started. It was a little awkward and when this gadget popped up I thought “Next time”.
Well, it turns out the next time has arrived. Tristan from Wheel Works built these wheels over four years ago, nd like he does for all his wheels, he keeps a meticulous record of all the specs. So when I emailed and said I’d snapped a drive side spoke, he knew the exact length to cut and roll a new spoke to. When I arrived on Friday last week, not only did he have a couple of drive and non-drive spokes ready, he also had the cool nipple tool I saw Rod using all packaged up.
It’s so simple it’s damn awesome. Tristan drew it in a CAD program and 3d printed it on-site, and even pushed in the little threaded insert. I did have to thread the bolt in from the outside once to clean it all out, as I couldn’t quite get it to thread in right out of the bag, once I had though, it threaded in easily.
The nipple tool slots over the nipple and tightens up so the nipple can’t fall into the rim, once on I grabbed some pliers held the spoke tight, and unthreaded the nipple. So easy.
Once the broken spoke is out of the nipple, the new Spoke is ready for a little grease (or spoke-prep) and to be threaded back in! It is that simple!
The process was so pain-free and super quick. The nipple tool and a couple of spare spokes are now traveling with me on all my extended trips.
If you don’t have one of these little bad boys in your tool setup, you definitely need one! You can grab them here for just $20. Tristan didn’t pay me to say this, I just think it’s super cool and functional tool and I wish I’d known about it and had one sooner!
