Mike Tierney

The Wheel Builder Columnist

My lifetime of cycling started at the age of 14, back in the early ’60s, in my native northern UK. I lived on the lower slopes of the Pennine hills and spent most of my youth riding up into the hillier parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire with the local cycling club – the Oldham Century Road Club.I lived on the lower slopes of the Pennine hills and spent most of my youth riding up into the hillier parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire with the local cycling club – the Oldham Century Road Club.

I raced time trials and track at the old Fallowfield track in Manchester. Growing up near the hills, I developed a healthy love of climbing on the bike. I’d still rather ride up hills than ride down them!

I came to Ontario, Canada, at age 20, employed as an auto mechanic for the first 10 years of my working life. This technical background made bicycle mechanics a breeze, and I’m proud of the fact that no one other than myself has worked on my bikes, bike builds or wheels during my 53 years in the sport.

I built my first wheels at age 14, out of necessity, and back then there was no written information on wheel building. I learned by copying another wheel.

Wheel building became a true passion about 15 years ago, and I started to put all my knowledge on my wheel building website. I’m proud that hundreds of cyclists have built their first wheels with online help from my site.

I’m honored to write The Wheel Builder column for RBR and hopefully it will motivate someone, somewhere to build their first wheels.

Send me your questions about wheel building and wheel maintenance to [email protected]. We use reader questions, along with my answers, in the weekly RBR Newsletter, and in the Tech section of the site.