wheels: how true is "true"?

In article said:

how much lateral movement is allowed on the wheels to be considered good. often i spend alot of
time going crazy with the spoke wrench until i get the wheels down to 1/4 or 1/5th mm. is a wheel
at this spec good/bad/horrible? its a mtn bike with semi slicks for mostly commuting

IMHO it needs to be round enough that you don't feel high or low spots when riding (I'd estimate
roundness +/- 1 mm) and true laterally so that it clears the brake pads (so again +/- 1 mm). IMHO
it's more important to have even tension rather than a perfectly cosmetically true wheel.

good is no excess tire wear better is getting it "right" outasight is understanding the
process-observation analysis strategy tactics time efficiency vs throwing the sucker out after
stomping onit developing the neural pathways for the necessary FOUR DIMENSIONAL THOUGHT PROCESSES
learning fortitude and emotional stability when the Expletive Deleted nipple/spoke lets go on the
last tighten up.... perfect is getting comfortable with the preceeding

iirc, campy specify 0.2mm for new rim rebuilds. that's a tight spec.

tsp said:

how much lateral movement is allowed on the wheels to be considered good. often i spend alot of
time going crazy with the spoke wrench until i get the wheels down to 1/4 or 1/5th mm. is a wheel
at this spec good/bad/horrible? its a mtn bike with semi slicks for mostly commuting

Does it bug you to look at it as it goes around? If so it isn't true enough. Phil brown

Phil Brown <[email hidden]> wrote:
: Does it bug you to look at it as it goes around? If so it isn't true enough. Phil brown

That is the best answer yet.

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Bob Masse' [email hidden]
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tsp-<< often i spend alot of time going crazy with the spoke wrench until i get the wheels down to
1/4 or 1/5th mm. is a wheel at this spec good/bad/horrible?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

<BR><BR>

1/5mm is 'true', remember the tru-ist the wheel will ever be is in the truing stand.

Peter Chisholm Vecchio's Bicicletteria 1833 Pearl St. Boulder, CO, 80302
(2)440-3535 vecchios.comvecchios.comOpen ↗ "Ruote convenzionali costruite eccezionalmente bene"

uce-<< iirc, campy specify 0.2mm for new rim rebuilds. that's a tight spec.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

<BR><BR>

too bad they don't get there....

Peter Chisholm Vecchio's Bicicletteria 1833 Pearl St. Boulder, CO, 80302
(303)440-3535 vecchios.comvecchios.comOpen ↗ "Ruote convenzionali costruite eccezionalmente bene"

tsp said:

how much lateral movement is allowed on the wheels to be considered good. often i spend alot of
time going crazy with the spoke wrench until i get the wheels down to 1/4 or 1/5th mm. is a wheel
at this spec good/bad/horrible? its a mtn bike with semi slicks for mostly commuting

When is a painting done? You just know.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Tsp
how much lateral movement is allowed on the wheels to be considered good. often i spend alot of time
going crazy with the spoke wrench until i get the wheels down to 1/4 or 1/5th mm. is a wheel at this
spec good/bad/horrible? its a mtn bike with semi slicks for mostly commuting

Spoke alignment helps ensure the rim and spokes will stay where they started when they came out of the truing stand.
Even spoke tesnion is also important.
Centering is as important.
Most shops specify .5 mm in lateral true and .5 mm centering.
Stress relieving and proper tesnioning are also very important.
"the Bicycle Wheel" by Jobst Brandt is the best guide to getting your wheel to be the best that is can be.

Tim McNamara <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

IMHO it needs to be round enough that you don't feel high or low spots when riding (I'd estimate
roundness +/- 1 mm) and true laterally so that it clears the brake pads (so again +/- 1 mm). IMHO
it's more important to have even tension rather than a perfectly cosmetically true wheel.

+/- 1mm seems reasonable to me. When I was in the bike business there were a lot of rims that came
in that couldn't be trued better than +/- 1mm because of a jump at the seam or other defects. Some
rims did come out of the box round and flat enough to be trued to a fraction of a mm but we mostly
kept those jems for ourselves (yes, we were guilty of cherry picking).

I've ridden wheels that had been through crashes that were a few mm out of round and I still
couldn't feel high and low spots while riding. How far the wheel can be out of true without hitting
your brake pads will depend on your brakes. Old standard reach Campy calipers could still lock up a
wheel even with the QR opened to clear a wheel with a broken spoke. Modern calipers need to be
placed closer to the rim and require truer wheels.
--
Bruce Jackson - Sr. Systems Programmer - DMSP, A M/A/R/C Group Company