Bent wheels

in message <[email hidden]>, savispud

(') said:

Dear All,
A wheel was recently bent so badly while in transit to the extent
that it was unusable. The rim was undamaged. The bike shop did a good
job truing it although the spokes are not too tight. How stable will
this wheel be. Will it twist out of true in the near future. Should I
replace it?
Generally when should you give up on a wheel?

It depends how far it's been bent, and I'm not clear from what you're
saying. But if the brake tracks are still true, and if bike shop thought
it was worth truing, it's almost certainly fine - good as new.

I would give up on a wheel if the rim had distorted, which normally means
there's some degree of kink or ripple in the brake track. Sometimes even
those can be fixed.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; Diplomacy, American: see Intelligence, Military

Quoted message said:

It depends how far it's been bent, and I'm not clear from what you're
saying. But if the brake tracks are still true, and if bike shop thought
it was worth truing, it's almost certainly fine - good as new.

(Si Hijacks the thread..)
I pulled a pair of wheels out of a skip a while ago, the rear was fine
the front bent pretty badly (nicked or vandalised bike). It's a twenty
spoke Rolf Vector, decent enough looking wheel.

I'm surpised how stiff the rim is given how a tweak with a spoke key
can straighten the things.

My straightening technique involves propping it up on bits of wood and
jumping on it; I'm down to half an inch or so off centre, but I tried
reassembling it and tightening the spokes doesn't make much
difference. I'm tempted to bin the wheel unless anyone has any clever
suggestions...

Simon Brooke said:

in message <[email hidden]>, savispud

(') said:

Dear All,
A wheel was recently bent so badly while in transit to the extent
that it was unusable. The rim was undamaged. The bike shop did a good
job truing it although the spokes are not too tight. How stable will
this wheel be. Will it twist out of true in the near future. Should I
replace it?
Generally when should you give up on a wheel?

It depends how far it's been bent, and I'm not clear from what you're
saying. But if the brake tracks are still true, and if bike shop thought
it was worth truing, it's almost certainly fine - good as new.

I would give up on a wheel if the rim had distorted, which normally means
there's some degree of kink or ripple in the brake track. Sometimes even
those can be fixed.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke)http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; Diplomacy, American: see Intelligence, Military

The tires were rubbing against the frame. It works fine now, my only
concern is the lack of tension in the spokes. Will they go out of true
in the near future.
A different topic is bike shops. Most bike shops would say that the
nipples are rust frozen- spokes are to soggy - the wind is in the
wrong direction - you definitely need a new wheel - please buy. I was
on holiday and was fortunate to find a good bike shop. I have stoped
usung all my local ones for this reason.

Quoted message said:

The tires were rubbing against the frame. It works fine now, my only
concern is the lack of tension in the spokes. Will they go out of true
in the near future.

I don't think spokes need to be too tight. I have found threads for my
rims (Mavic MA3) that suggests a common problem is the rim cracking
because of overtight spokes.

If you need to regain confidence in your wheels then you could just go
out for a few short rides, being careful to bang the odd pothole or
two. If they stay straight then feel happier doing whatever riding you
like.

Simon L said:

Quoted message said:

It depends how far it's been bent, and I'm not clear from what you're
saying. But if the brake tracks are still true, and if bike shop thought
it was worth truing, it's almost certainly fine - good as new.

(Si Hijacks the thread..)
I pulled a pair of wheels out of a skip a while ago, the rear was fine
the front bent pretty badly (nicked or vandalised bike). It's a twenty
spoke Rolf Vector, decent enough looking wheel.

I'm surpised how stiff the rim is given how a tweak with a spoke key
can straighten the things.

My straightening technique involves propping it up on bits of wood and
jumping on it; I'm down to half an inch or so off centre, but I tried
reassembling it and tightening the spokes doesn't make much
difference. I'm tempted to bin the wheel unless anyone has any clever
suggestions...

Reading this, I remembered Sheldon Brown saying this:

"The proper repair in this situation is first to bend the rim back to its
normal shape, and then fine true it with the spokes. Lightweight wheels can
be bent fairly easily by placing your knee or foot right on the peak of the
bend, and pulling with your hands on either side of the bend. This or a
similar technique should be used whenever a rim is bent more than 1
centimeter to the side and there are no broken spokes. Even wheels that
have collapsed into the shape of a potato chip usually can be made rideable
again with this technique This is a very useful on-the-road repair-it even
can be done without removing the wheel from the bike. If you are not sure
of your skill, you are less likely to do further damage bending wheels over
your knee, spectacular as it may look, than with a spoke wrench used
carelessly."

Here:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/truing.html

This is an old article though, I don't know how well it applies to Rolf
Vectors.

In article <[email hidden]>,
savispud
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Dear All,
A wheel was recently bent so badly while in transit to the extent
that it was unusable. The rim was undamaged. The bike shop did a good
job truing it although the spokes are not too tight. How stable will
this wheel be. Will it twist out of true in the near future. Should I
replace it?
Generally when should you give up on a wheel?

As others have said, it depends if the shop straightened the rim before
they trued the wheel - if it's relying on uneven spoke tension to hold
it straight then it will likely do Pringle impressions again. If the
spokes are evenly tensioned but not very tight then it's possible the
wheel popped because the spoke tension was too much for the rim - this
can happen when building a new wheel, and usually just popping it back
(put it on the floor, press hard on the high points and it pretty much
pings back into shape) slackening the spokes a bit and retruing results
in a useable wheel.