Wheel Proffesional

Wheel building/truing is an art that I generally leave to the pros. It is one thing if I am out in the hinterlands and something goes amiss. My question to you is how you did not notice this before you wheeled your bike to go out for a ride. It sounds like the wheel was seriously out of true before you began monkeying around with it.

I have always fixed and built my own wheels. It's not "rocket science" that should be left only to the pros. There are a lot of resources for information on wheel-building. Jobst Brandt's book "The Bicycle Wheel" is where I learned. www.sheldonbrown.com has similar info for free!

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Elduderino
Aparently you should never touch your wheels! Leave it to a proffessional is what i've been told.
I'm trying to work out if this is a valid statement or not.

The other day I got up, got ready for the daily ride to work and went down stairs to my bike as I kicked it up onto the back wheel ("chuckin' the walkin' mono" as I like to refer to it) obviously making it easier to get around corners and trough doors in a rather tight house.
Anyway I started to wheel it and noticed that the wheel and pads were making some contact, I had a play around and realised that there was a spoke or three loose right about five spokes away from the where the wheel was making contact with the pads.
I thought thats a bit odd, then I noticed where the spokes were a little loose there was significant slices in my tyres, No puncture and a bogled, confused baboon trying to figure out whats going on later I decided to buy a spoke tool.

This is where I should tell you I have only been riding since last november so my skills as a bike mechanic are not up there with bill Gates in business rather the local vietnamese dry cleaners.

I caught a ride to work that day and on the way home picked up a spoke tool, Hehehehe HAHAHAHAHAH HEHEHAHAHAHRRRR (Evil Laugh!)

5:30pm and I'm home with a beer in one hand and a spoke tool in the other, have a little bit of a fiddle with the loose spokes and find that the buckle in the wheel gains length, play with a few of the spokes around the buckle (find the length of the buckle gets greater again!) go around the whole wheel and tighten them all up a little more and just generally see if I can figure out whats going on!? Nah... that would be nice, nice things dont happen to this fella. The wheel ends up absolutely buckled! I'm talkin when I spin it it makes entire conact with the left pad so much so that I have a hard time pulling it through, then when I do get it through it makes the same amount of contact with the right pad! AAAHAHA.
I scream this with frustration as I am about to slam my Lemond into the washing mashine (god knows it needs a wash too!).

So I take it into the shop and they tell me never to touch a wheel again or they'll report me.
(Note the just said it's not a good idea to play with wheels unless you know what your doing. I figure you know what your doing from playing with something!?) They say leave it to the proffessional. I say OK, at least in this instance.

I just wanted to know if it's common for people to fix there own wheels or do most people get a pro to do it... I would also like to know if anyone's had any [censored] experiences such as mine before also (It'll let me sleep a little easier). 😠 for the wheel 😄 to all who read this. Thanks!

Funny write up!
I suppose that a spoke wrench is the most dangerous bicycle tool in the hands of an inexperienced person.
Tensioning and truing in Sheldon Brown's wheelbuilding article:
http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html
is a good place to start.
However, if you don't practice the art and get it down well, you would likely be best off letting the professionals handle it.
I decided that I was going to invest the time and tools to do it right. It takes time, some kind of truing fixture, and other items come in handy, including a dishing tool. It can be time consuming, but I find it satisfying.