From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: A Wheel Building Question (or two)
Date: 29 Sep 2000 02:03:00 GMT

Tom Young writes:

> After lacing up a new wheel it seems inevitably there's one spot
> (right around the seam?) that gives a left or right (side-to-side)
> "hop" that requires lots of tension on the spoke opposite the hop.
> Typically, when I get this side-to-side hop smoothed out I've
> tightened one spoke so much that the wheel is significantly "low"
> radially at this point.  And while I achieved good success at
> building wheels that are true laterally, I've never been happy with
> their roundness.

I don't know what rims you are using but they are not good.  I haven't
had such a rim problem in many years.  Of course I've been using MA-2
rims primarily but others have not shown this bad form you mention.
The way I fixed that in the days of yore is to treat it like a bent rim
and lay the high spot on the floor, pressing down with the hands on
either side until the wow was reasonably straight.  Try it.

Jobst Brandt      <jbrandt@hpl.hp.com>

From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech,rec.bicycles.misc
Subject: Re: wheel straightening tips?
Date: 2 May 2001 16:08:52 GMT

W.A. Manning writes:

> Yesterday, I pranged my mtb and one casualty was my rear wheel: it's
> significantly (~1/4" or more) out of true for about 1/8th (or more)
> of it's circumference.  I'm pretty good @ wheel trueing, but this
> displacement looks to be outside the scope of trueability just using
> the spokes.

Place the wheel on the floor, wow facing downward and press down on
the rim with your knees to either side of the wow.  This will cause
the wheel to bend and temporarily make loose spokes before it springs
back.  Do this repeatedly in stages to see how much over-bend it takes
to get the wheel close to true.  the rest is spoke wrench and even
then another bend or two.  If the wheel is highly tensioned, backing
off uniformly on all spokes a half turn helps, however, the method
works well only with some tension, so don't get them too loose.  I
have recovered so-called total loss wheels by this method for tourists
I encountered in the middle of "nowhere" and who were ready to hitch a
ride "home".

Jobst Brandt      <jbrandt@hpl.hp.com>