Quick Fix: True A Bicycle Wheel Without Tools & Get Back Home

this is great info, thanks!

Or just don’t ride sh1te wheels, If your a big guy (14 stone plus) racing wheels don’t belong on your bike, ride 36s.

If your a massive Jabba the Hood with pee wee herman bike skills and cant hop a curb, I believe some BMX company released 96s you may use.

I learned something new today. Excellent! Now I can start drinking.

uh, carry a spoke-wrench!

Bike Rumor commenters never cease to amaze me. Someone offers some free advice on how to maybe save your butt on a ride, and you still find a way to be critical and come off like snobs. Well done!

i don’t think the comments are critical or snobbish. if you can turn true your wheel solely by hand after having a similar issue then more power to ya. it doesn’t really present a solution but rather points out serious lack of prep.

Its a get you home fix guys, not a wheel building masterclass….. duhhhh.

Genius quite frankly and worth a shot if your wheel is that bad, saves walking miles if you can limp it home at the very least. If your wheel is wrecked, its worth a shot, if it doesn’t work, at least you tried.

Just to be different… nipples shouldn’t NEED thread compound to keep tension.

While I’m always in favor of ways to make it home under my own power instead of having to call for a ride or walk and shred cleats, here’s another chime in for “carry a multi-tool that has a spoke wrench, or better yet, a spoke wrench!” Even if you don’t know how to use it, there is a chance that someone may be with you or pass by that DOES know how to use it. If you have the tool, better chance that it will be put to use. If you know how to use the spoke wrench, you might just save somebody’s ride. You could be rewarded with beer!

Still, for low-end or less-than-ideally-built wheels this is another way that you might limp home with a wheel that can still be saved by your LBS. For all the “racers” out there that ride stripped-down while training, beef up your seat bag with some tools. It’s a training aid. You don’t need it for a race (if your wheel did that in a race, your race is over) so you might be a watt or two ahead of your training effort.

I’m glad my wheels don’t have paired spokes…

Articles like these boost job security for mechanic’s everywhere. Keep ’em coming.

Better Advice: Take the wheel and smash the bent part of the rim on the pavement so it goes back to shape. Then, when you get home throw the bent wheels out and buy better wheels.

No wheel should ever lose tension to such a degree that you can hand tighten a spoke… unless its taco’d or otherwise rendered completely broken. I have NEVER seen a spoke lose tension JRA.

Many riders overlook the simple soulution based of scientific principles. Air is a major force pressing evenly around the circumference of the rim, thus reducing tension on the spokes all around. Just spin the wheel so the tire contacts the ground in the affected area. Then lean the bike over in the same direction as the error in rim, while at the same time pressing down on the bike to decrease the volume of air in the tire at the contact patch. To finish just let a little air out while holding bike in this position. Just do not get crazy and let all the air out. This is where a riding partner can really help with an extra hand and/or pump. Simple science allows the spoke tension to effectively increase, at the site of decreased tire pressure and volume. Typically this technique will require you to repeat this procedure multiple times on wheels with larger errors, as only small changes in tension happen with every executon of this method.

If I had room, I would bring a tensiometer with me on my rides, just to check wheels for other riders. The vast majority of wheels out there are under-tensioned, just because so few are ever brought up to the rim’s ideal amount of tension before they’re installed, and also because fewer and fewer instances where a wheel is trued are followed up by a tension check and/or retensioning.
When you’ve got a rim at it’s ideal tension, say 1-1.1kg/f (~100-110nM/f) for the average medium duty aluminum rim, that’s been properly stress-relieved (squozen spokes, etc), with a sensible spoke count, you will never see it go out of true or lose tension, short of a catastrophic impact or crash. If you were to try and bend the rim to the side and mimic the wheel being loaded, you would definitely not be able to move the nipple by hand, because the tension is still at a sufficient level in that spot to support the wheel structure under load. Balanced tension allows every spoke in the wheel to support the rest by loading and unloading an extremely slight amount of tension relative to the total tension, and this slight amount doesn’t even come close to allowing things like spoke bends to cold-work themselves, or for nipples to loosen. This is why properly built wheels can last for years and years without much upkeep. If your wheel is going out of true, check tension. If you’re breaking spokes, check tension! It’s totally preventative maintenance, and a proper investment in your wheels.

@MotoPete: If that was a troll…best ever…I read it like 3 times to make sure I wasn’t the one who was high. If not…NO…just no.

@Dork: 100% Exactly on the money. The only thing that is truly “custom” in my mind about a wheelset is the tension. All the other parts are off the self. But getting a good tension that will both support your weight and riding style while staying true and round is the only way to customize a wheel. Everyone should know what they like their spoke tension at for a given wheel. And they should check it like they check their tires for air.

Tried it with my wheelset (Stans ZTR Crests build by my LBS) and couldn’t flex them enough to de-tension the spoke. I think Tyler’s wheels weren’t built very well, plus the lack of spoke prep.

I’m curious why a bike with such little tire clearance has disc brakes.

i am fed up with robot replies and lack of any service from bkool , i have had a few videos uploaded and they are still waiting approval over 10 days later when they cliam it only takes 48 hours ,

the accuracy of the bkool is far from satisfactory the one video that did go live , the uphills are slower (not a bad thing ) but the downhills get over 50mph without needing to pedal when on the road i am lucky to hit 30ish mph !!!
all in all not impressed with the customer service or the accuracy

wont be renewing my prem membership …. i will be looking at a wahoo kicker