Front wheel needs re-truing - can I still ride?

F365Eli

I dropped down a large hole last night whilst cycling home from work and after examining my bike carefully my front wheel needs re-truing.

As my bike is my principle method of getting to work would I be safe to cycle in tomorrow and Friday (it's a 6 mile round trip) before I can get to my LBS or should I leave it alone until I've had it sorted?

Thanks in advance.

Essex Man

Will be fine unless it's really out of shape.

CarleyB

Essex Man wrote:

Will be fine unless it's really out of shape.

+1 I've done 40 plus miles on an untrue wheel...

F365Eli

Thanks guys.

Rode in on it this morning after seeing your replies and it seems to still ride fine. It's not too far out - you can only really see it's out when you flip it over and spin the wheel whilst watching the edge of the rim against the brake blocks.

I'll get it booked in today and run in down at the weekend.

Mister W

It's only slightly out of true and you're booking it in to a bike shop??? Just do it yourself. It's not rocket science. At the risk of getting a slap..... it's so easy that I get the wife to do mine.

Butterd2

Mister W wrote:

It's only slightly out of true and you're booking it in to a bike shop??? Just do it yourself. It's not rocket science. At the risk of getting a slap..... it's so easy that I get the wife to do mine.

+1

keef66

I've just trued a front wheel that initially resembled a pringle. All it takes is a spoke key and a bit of patience.

CarleyB

It's only easy if you know how!

BikingBecky

HI there F365Eli

First you need to examine the wheel. If a spoke is broken, or a rim or tyre is damaged, don't ride on it if you don't have to. If it's simply and lightly buckled, then re-truing is relative simple, and you can ride on it. I am riding a buckled wheel right now and I ride to work twice a week (round trip 48 miles), and it's been buckled for *months*. This is a mountain bike wheel with disc brakes though...

How badly buckled is it? Rule of thumb I use, is that if the buckle can hit the frame, chances are it's too buckled, and you might have fatally weakened the rim and a number of spokes. Also look for cracked paint around the buckle on the rim, or the spoke eyes. Cracked paint could indicate the rim has been stretched and weakened the metal.

Also, there are localised buckles (the rims is only out by '5-6 spokes'), and whole wheel buckles (there are no straight bits left on the rim). I'll deal with the localised ones, since they're more common - whole wheel ones are usually the result of a wheel that was unbalanced to begin with.

I say relatively easy, because to true a wheel properly, you will need:

- A spoke key
- A wheel truing jig
- knowledge about wheel building
- patience

The third and last ones are crucial; the spoke tensions need to even all the way round, on each side. A rear wheels drive side may have tighter spokes on the drive side than on the non-drive side as well, to complicate things further.

If you have buckled it, chances are the entire balance of the wheel is now off, and you will need to go round each spoke, tensioning and test-spinning the wheel until all the spokes are evenly tensioned, and the wheel runs true and even, with no "up and down". The rim should also sit exactly on the centre line of the hub. You need the jig for this.

This takes time to get right, and probably best done by your LBS. Done properly, a good quality hand-built wheel will take tons of punishment without buckling; my crit race wheels are built like this, and in 6 years, have only required a light tweak after thousands of hard miles. I use the same guy to build all my wheels.

In an emergency, a roadside repair can be done with a spoke key, by finding the buckle, and balancing the tension on 3 spokes either side of the centre of the buckle. Tighten a loose spoke on the "outward" part of the buckle to "pull" the rim back to the centre-line, and loosen a tight one to "release" it. Obviously, this depends on which side of the wheel the spoke is secured on! Don't tighten/release it more than 1/2 a turn at a time, and test-spin it after each change. Test the tension of each spoke by "wiggling" it from side to side, or by using your fingers to pinch two neighbouring spokes together on one side - both spokes should flex the same amount. Flip to the other side, and repeat. Then return back to the original side, move one spoke further round and repeat the process, "flip flopping" until the entire wheel is done.

Don't try and achieve perfection at the roadside - just do enough to hopefully have it not rub on the brakes (road bike) and get you home; go "too far" and you may end up making it worse!

Riding with a broken spoke is also possible, by folding the broken spoke into other spokes to secure it, and tweaking the tension on the 3 spokes either side of it to remove any buckle that might appear. But it's only to get you home - don't try and ride all the time on it, or the whole lot might go, or worse the broken spoke may come loose and stab you in the calf!

Hope this helps,

Euan

cougie

Its a piece of pee to straighten a slightly buckled wheel. 5 mins tops.

BikingBecky

Yes, as a few have commented, a "roadside repair" (as I described it) can be performed quickly on a wheel that's barely buckled. It may only take 3-4 turns of the *correct* 2-3 spokes to re-true it. So 5-10 mins.

Just make sure you choose the right spokes to tighten/loosen:

(when sitting on bike):
- buckled to the left; *tighten* the RIGHT spokes and "loosen" the LEFT ones (as appropriate)
- buckled to the right; *tighten* the LEFT spokes and "loosen" the RIGHT ones (as appropriate)

Just don't go nuts and try and do the whole wheel!

F365Eli

Cheers for all your advice.

The main reasons I'm going to drop it in to the LBS are:

I don't have a spoke key, and would have to go to my LBS anyway to buy one; I don't have a truing jig, nor anywhere to use one, for that matter; I have no knowledge of wheel-building whatsoever;

I'm not the most mechanically-minded person in the world and until such a time as I have undertaken one of the maintenance courses my LBS offers I ain't going to be messing with anything!

keef66

Come on, get yourself on YouTube! Hundreds of videos showing you how to do everything from fixing a puncture to building a bike from scratch.

I just replaced some bar tape; never done it before, but it looks lovely!

cougie

When you put the bike in - get a spoke key and next time you can do it yourself. Its really easy. Use your brake blocks in place of a wheel jig. I've been doing that for 25 years or more.

Essex Man

Yes, use your brake blocks in place of a jig, but it really is a waste of money going into the bike shop for a slightly out of true wheel when you can keep riding it until the spoke key you ordered for less that 2 quid arrives in the post.

Tighten the spoke on one side, loosen on the other or vice versa as per you'll find on YouTube as previously mentioned. It is really easy.