Wheel Truing best left to the bike shop or easy to learn?

Deputydoug

So is wheel truing easy to learn how to do and what kit is essential or is it best left to the bike shop.

Also is it best practicing on a cheap wheel incase it all goes horribly wrong?

And finally should you tighten the spokes as part of regular maintenance?

As much advice as possible would be greatly appreciated on this one.

nicklouse

have a read of Sheldon's wheel building pages. Link below.

mac_man

Deputydoug wrote:

So is wheel truing easy to learn how to do and what kit is essential or is it best left to the bike shop.

Also is it best practicing on a cheap wheel incase it all goes horribly wrong?

And finally should you tighten the spokes as part of regular maintenance?

As much advice as possible would be greatly appreciated on this one.

No harm in practicing on an old wheel to see if you can get good results. I've been doing some part time work at a local bike shop and had a go at wheel truing, not building. The truing stand and dish stick make life a lot easier.

Personally I'd rather let the local shop do it for me rather than spending a load of money on the right kit to do the job... I don't think I could justify the cost. Better to buy better wheels in the first place :-)

BlueAdvocate

If you are interested the Wheelpro http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/ book is good for a few quid; I've built a wheel truing stand from it, just need to fixing my knackered wheel - definitely new rim job!

xtremedash

BlueAdvocate wrote:

If you are interested the Wheelpro http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/ book is good for a few quid; I've built a wheel truing stand from it, just need to fixing my knackered wheel - definitely new rim job!

+1

I bought his e-book then used it to build a great truing stand and a set of Mavic EX721/Hope Pro 2 wheels. They've only needed 1 or 2 minor adjustments since building them 2 years ago.