Regular Wheel Truing

gezebo
gezebo Posts: 364
edited December 2011 in Workshop
Hi everyone
After mtn biking for years I've turned to the dark side and bought a road bike. It's a kona honky tonic 2011 for reference.

Ivedone about 200 miles or so on it on admittedly fairly crappy roads and I've noticed that the front wheel is a little out of true now.

My question is how often should I expect to tinker with my wheels (i realise this is quite an open question!) Would 200 miles hr reasonable or maybe 1000, 5000? Also would swapping wheels for higher quality help?

Thanks in advance.

Ps. I'm pretty well versed on the mechanics of truing etc after building several mtn bikes. Just new to the delicacies of toad bikes!

Comments

  • desweller
    desweller Posts: 5,175
    I'd say that a properly built wheel should not need retruing, ever, unless it's had an extremely hefty whack. Just normal riding and normal potholes should not affect it.
    - - - - - - - - - -
    On Strava.{/url}
  • Pigtail
    Pigtail Posts: 424
    I'm about 85 kgs, have an Allez with Mavic cxp22 rims, and they have just been trued for the first time. Just over a year old and around 4000 miles.
  • Monty Dog
    Monty Dog Posts: 20,614
    Depends on the quality of the wheelbuild in the first place. If the spoke tension was insufficient in the first place - as with many machine-built wheels on stock bikes - then they probably need a tweak with a spoke key
    Make mine an Italian, with Campagnolo on the side..
  • Yossie
    Yossie Posts: 2,600
    I've always found with decent factory built wheels a quick tweak after the first couple of hundred miles then unless you smack them round a bit you shouldn't really need to touch them again for a long, long while.

    Cheap cr4p every year - end of the winter.

    My front Kyserium could do with a tweak for the first time in 6 years, but that's only because a bit of my daily ride is very Paris-Roubaix over a load of cobbles and the other day I had the urge to bunny hop past some dude who thought he was quick but wasn't and went much higher than I expected. Looked freakin' cool though.

    HTH

    Y
  • gezebo
    gezebo Posts: 364
    Thanks for the advice. I'll give them a tweak and carry on. I found you can bunny hop quite high on a road bike to yossie!
  • Yossie
    Yossie Posts: 2,600
    To show what road wheels can put up with, there was a film a while backof some trials/MTB dude who took a Raleigh road bike off road, down mountains and jumping over street furniture - his wheels were, allegedly, perfect (or near as dammit) at the end of it.

    Worth doing as a search for as he's mental and, to use the modern popular MTB parlance, well gnarly and rad, dude.