Can buckled wheels be fixed?!

MTBNaomi.

Heyy
Sorry if this is a really, really trivial question, but I generally don't do technical bike stuff (lol) and I don't really want to have to buy a new wheelset as my current one is fairly new!!

I ride a Specialized Rockhopper 08 disc (I know it's not exactly "top-end", but the amount of fun I have got from it...!!) and today I decided I could ride down a really steep, muddy hill. My back wheel kept sliding out from under me and I ended up doing a double somersault into a load of brambles and ground. When I got up I realised that the front wheel was badly buckled.

Can alloy wheels be straightened by Halfords, local shop, etc? It's just other metals bend differently than steel!! How much would it cost, roughly, to fix a buckled wheel? And would the wheel be weakened at all?

Thank you so much!!

nicklouse

some can some can not.

A wheel builder will be able to advise you if yours is fixable.

simply100

i would take it to your local bike shop rather than halfords, but it does depend on how buckled the wheel is. it should cost you around £15 for a wheel true. the wheel can weaken as with any metal if it is bent or mishaped, the more it gets buckled the more it will weaken especially on single walled rims which will eventually lead to the rim being too far gone to be fixed.

When your bike was built the wheels would of been built by machine and usually are not built properly and spoke tensions are nowhere near what they should be making the wheels weaker than they should be leading to the buckling fairly easily. if the wheels were built properly in the first place they would take a bit more abuse to buckle them although it does depend on what you hit with them!

MTBNaomi.

simply100 wrote:

i would take it to your local bike shop rather than halfords, but it does depend on how buckled the wheel is. it should cost you around £15 for a wheel true. the wheel can weaken as with any metal if it is bent or mishaped, the more it gets buckled the more it will weaken especially on single walled rims which will eventually lead to the rim being too far gone to be fixed.

When your bike was built the wheels would of been built by machine and usually are not built properly and spoke tensions are nowhere near what they should be making the wheels weaker than they should be leading to the buckling fairly easily. if the wheels were built properly in the first place they would take a bit more abuse to buckle them although it does depend on what you hit with them!

Ok thanks, that's really awesome!! I don't think the buckle was too bad as I managed to ride 8 miles home with it, but I really don't want to have to replace it as I'm pretty broke at the moment!!