Wheel truing?

nickel

Hi all,

Hit a huge pot hole on the club run this morning and when I stopped at the cafe I found my rear wheel was quite badly out of true (wobbled maybe 5mm and rubbed against the pad), thankfully I had a spoke key in my saddle bag and managed to do a bit of a bodged truing which resulted in the wobble being reduced to maybe 2mm. Im going to have a crack at evening out the tension across all the spokes tommorow and getting it as true as possible but should I take the wheel to my LBS to be retensioned and retrued anyway? I only ask because Im hardly an expert wheel builder and I've read that unless you're experienced you can unevely tension the spokes and weaken the build of the wheel.

Advice appreciated
Cheers.

essjaydee

Is there anyone experienced in your club that could do this for you :?:

If not, I'd take it to the LBS and you know it'll be checked and done properly

navrig

I did exactly the same thing and now have a noticeable flatspot and loose spoke. The LBS is going try and sort the buckle but the flat spot is too big.

racingcondor

If it went that far out of true without breaking spokes it's likely that the rim is wrecked. It may be possible to straighten it out but the difference in spoke tension to do so will likely lead to under and over tensioned spokes which will break further down the line.

Your LBS will have a better idea of if it can be fixed once they've unlaced the wheel and had a look.

2Phat4Rapha

You have almost certainly put permanent damage into your rim by pushing one spot beyond its elastic limit.

You may be able to compensate for this damage with a spoke key but rims are consumables, albeit expensive ones at times, so a replacement is on the cards.

You've got a spoke key so why not try replacing it and save yourself a pony along the way.

nickel

Update: Took it to my LBS yesterday, they've retrued and retensioned the spokes but they did tell me excess tension has had to be put on the spokes in the area where the wheel buckled to hold the wheel true. This obviously has weakened the wheel a bit but I've been told it's got a decent amount of life in yet. Regarding a rebuild, it really isn't worth it, the wheels are only the stock ones that came with my bike (Mavic CXP22s on shimano hubs) and as long as the rear wheels holds out for the winter I'll be upgrading the wheelset next spring anyway.