Wheel keeps going out of true

Anonymous

I'm hopeless at truing for a start, but have managed to by hand (without truing stand) do adjustments to get the rear wheel reasonably true. A few rides later, and especially after fairly hard riding on technical stuff, the rear is fairly out of true again (a good 5 to 10mm wobble on it).

Curiously the disc rotor is fractionally bent also it seems. I thought it wasn't but I can see now there's a tiny wobble in it, which explains why it catches the pad sometimes. Yet the trueness of the wheel shouldn't affect the rotor should it as that's on the hub? Hub looks okay to me, and no play in it.

However, the bike did take a tumble off an edge into a big hole (namely the corkscrew bridge at Cwmcarn! ), so it could have taken damage then.

Should I just keep trying to true it or am I looking at replacements (spokes, hub, etc)? New spokes would be like doing a full wheel build I take it, which is probably beyond me.

Oh and if I take the wheel to an LBS to do it properly, is it best to take it with tyre and tube on or off?

stu8975

Needs to be trued and tensioned properly, if the spokes are not tensioned (even if its true), it will still go out fairly easily again.

Anonymous

LBS job then it seems. How much should I expect to be fleeced for it, and would even places like Evans and Halfords be trusted to cope with the job?

I'd like to learn to do it properly myself, but I can't bring myself to fork out for the stand as they're v.expensive.

stu8975

Depends on the store as whether they are trusted or not, could be anywhere from £5+ from an Independent bike shop, Evans and Hellfrauds have some interesting price policies (or they used to), noted that they no longer advertise their repair costs.

ma9mwah

my LBS charged me £10 for a couple of new spokes and truing of a wheel. I removed the tyre and inner tube when i gave it to them.

Northwind

Remember there's a big difference between a quick repair and true, and a full rebuild... If the wheel's constantly going out then it probably needs the latter.

wobbem

If its an old rim - maybe metal fatigue which means replacing rim.

Anonymous

It's a little over a year old. Front wheel is identical and that's okay and rear rim looks visually okay, though I'll take the tyre and tube off and inspect further. As I say it could have been from an impact.