Dee Dub said:Looking for advice, physical or on-line resources.
My 'work' bike - commuter - has always had problems with back wheel. Partly self inflicted - I'm on the wrong side of 90kg. I replace spokes as they break but have continual problems with broken spokes and keeping it true and round.
I turn the bike upside down to straighten, which is pretty good to view sideways movement, but I keep getting lumps.
Lately, I have upgraded to heavier duty spokes which so far are holding in, but my problem is more my ability in the art of straightening.
LBSs charges by the hr, and will hardly get out of bed to treat my ugly ducking for less than $20 - every 6 weeks - this is unsustainable. New wheel has been a thought, but this is already a new one, only used on road and bike paths (not really hard terrain). I am still optimistic about upgrading my skills to get it right.
Any clues/instructions/ links to resources appreciated. Also, have wondered if there are any tools /jigs that can be constructed/purchased at reasonable cost to make this task easier.
Any help appreciated. 🙂
As I see it, you have two problems: spoke breakage and spokes loosening. These _can_ be related, but don't have to be.
You can reduce your spoke breakage problem by stress relieving your spokes. Use some gardening gloves and squeeze pairs of spokes together as hard as you can, about halfway up. Go all the way around, squeezing pairs of spokes really, really hard. If they break, they needed replacing anyway - you won't be able to break new spokes (unless you have the grip of a gorilla - I don't). This process helps reduce stress in the elbows of the spokes, reducing the chance they will break from fatigue.
If your wheels go out of true without a breakage, then they are loosening as the spoke nipple unscrews itself off the spoke threads. This can happen in a couple of ways. First, you may have "spoke wind-up" - you turn the nipple with the wrench, but instead of advancing along the thread, it sticks and just twists the spoke. You start riding and eventually (or straight away), the vibration and repeated cycling of loading and unloading the spokes will untwist the spoke and throw your wheel out of true. You can reduce the incidence of spoke wind-up by oiling the spoke threads with your favourite lubricant. A useful tip is also to "overshoot" when tightening and then back-off. For example, if you want to tighten a quarter turn, you should tighten a half turn and then back off a quarter turn.
Second, your spokes might not have been installed with enough tension... you need a lot of tension. In the absence of the right tool (tensiometer), I have three rules of thumb: (1) it has to be very difficult to tighten any further; (2) you hear an F when you pluck the spokes (a child's tenor recorder has an F that you can use). This is a pretty high note (around 440Hz), but it gets you in the neighbourhood of the right answer. (3) After you tension the spokes, stress relieve again. If the wheel stays true when you stress relieve, you tighten again until it doesn't - THEN you back off the tension to the last one that worked.
Finally, get the "roundness" direction true first, then lateral. It might take a few iterations, but roundness takes more turns to adjust than lateral, so it makes sense to use lateral trueness as the fine tuning step.
You'll need a spoke wrench and something to hold your wheel that you measure its trueness. I used a rim trainer with a couple of well placed rulers held on with sticky tape. Other people with more money opt for a truing stand.
It isn't as complicated as it sounds, and the rec.bicycles.tech FAQ as well as www.sheldonbrown.com are _excellent_ resources.
Happy truing! 🙂
Ritch
