when to get wheels "trued"

Fian

I have read a few threads mentionig wheels being trued. I know it involves adjusting the spokes, presumably to ensure the wheel is perfectly round and not slightly eliptical.

A "bike toolkit" I bought in lidl/aldi a while back even has a spoke tool for doing it.

I am generally pretty handy mechanically so i am willing to have a go at this myself, unless you guys advise that would be foolhardy adn i should leave it to a professional

My main question is - how do you know when your wheels need to be trued and if you adjust them how do you know that they are true? Is it a question of spinning them and looking for lateral motion to see if they are "buckled"? Is this a maintenance that needs to be done periodically or is it something that you only look to when you have a bump and notice a wheel is buckled? My hybrid is about 4/5 years old and i do about 80km per week on it commuting to work, my road bike is less than a year old, but i got it second hand, do probably 80km a week on average on that too.

Do more expensive wheels with fewer spokes need to be trued more frequently than heavier wheels?

anyway this is all generally a mystery to me, I would be grateful if someone could provide a ladybird version of what is involved.

ZiabR

Unless you have a wheel truing stand don't try it yourself. I tried without one and had to take the wheel to the LBS anyway to do a proper job. There is only so much you can do by eye.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/park-tool-home-mechanic-wheel-truing-stand-ts8/rp-prod13250

cdaly_

But don't buy a truing stand for €100, instead buy Roger Muson's wheelbuilding book for €10 and make a truing stand to the included design and learn how to do it...

Fian

thanks for those replies.

could i pester you further to advise as to how i would know whether they need to be trued?

Is it something that needs to be done regularly or only if a specific problem is noticed?

TheChizler

I just leave it on the bike and reference it to the brakes (if you have calipers), seems to work well enough.

seamus

So there are basically 3 distinct ways in which a rim requires alignment;

1. Dish - the location of the rim with respect to the axle. It should be centered, obviously.
2. Roundness - basically the shape of the rim when viewing the wheel side-on. It should be a circle, duh.
3. Side-to-side (wobble). A wheel can be dished and round and yet still have some side-to-side movement.

You can get a reasonably good gauge using the blocks for reference, but only for side-to-side movement. For dish and roundness, you really do need a stand and other paraphernalia to get it right. The good news is that dish and roundness will usually persist for the lifetime of the rim provided that you use a light touch when correcting side-to-side wobbles.

So do it on the bike if it's only slightly out (a couple of mm either side), but if you've let it go way out, there's a noticeable hop in the rotation, or you need to actually replace spokes, then you need the stand or a bike shop.

How you know that you need to fix it is when your rim isn't running straight when you spin it
Spin it in the frame and watch it between the brake blocks to see if there's any movement. Avoid being a perfectionist. A wheel true to within 1mm is for most people good enough and should be left well alone.

CatFromHue

TheChizler wrote: »

I just leave it on the bike and reference it to the brakes (if you have calipers), seems to work well enough.

Me too, you may not get it right down to the micron level but you can certainly do a good enough job to get the bike back up and running again.

Fian

Thanks very much, useful especially to know this is not some regular maintenance i should be doing like cleaning the chain, just something to do when problems emerge. Tbh in those circumstances i think i will be heading to my lbs if i get problems, especially given teh cost of the truing stand.

paulgs

Fian wrote: »

I have read a few threads mentionig wheels being trued. I know it involves adjusting the spokes, presumably to ensure the wheel is perfectly round and not slightly eliptical.

A "bike toolkit" I bought in lidl/aldi a while back even has a spoke tool for doing it.

I am generally pretty handy mechanically so i am willing to have a go at this myself, unless you guys advise that would be foolhardy adn i should leave it to a professional

My main question is - how do you know when your wheels need to be trued and if you adjust them how do you know that they are true? Is it a question of spinning them and looking for lateral motion to see if they are "buckled"? Is this a maintenance that needs to be done periodically or is it something that you only look to when you have a bump and notice a wheel is buckled? My hybrid is about 4/5 years old and i do about 80km per week on it commuting to work, my road bike is less than a year old, but i got it second hand, do probably 80km a week on average on that too.

Do more expensive wheels with fewer spokes need to be trued more frequently than heavier wheels?

anyway this is all generally a mystery to me, I would be grateful if someone could provide a ladybird version of what is involved.

Tweaking wheels on the bike is fine a bike shop won t take the wheel off the bike unless the buckle is bad use your brakes as a guide and the spoke key to make qtr turns you will true them up handy enough, a qtr turn one side and let the two opposing spokes off a little. You won't put a hop in the rim unless it is in bad shape or you really torque up the nipples