HELP - To get straight and true

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 replac
spokes as they break but have continual problems with broken spokes an
keeping it true and round.

I turn the bike upside down to straighten, which is pretty good to vie
sideways movement, but I keep getting lumps.

Lately, I have upgraded to heavier duty spokes which so far are holdin
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 ugl
ducking for less than $20 - every 6 weeks - this is unsustainable. Ne
wheel has been a thought, but this is already a new one, only used o
road and bike paths (not really hard terrain). I am still optimisti
about upgrading my skills to get it right.

Any clues/instructions/ links to resources appreciated. Also, hav
wondered if there are any tools /jigs that can be constructed/purchase
at reasonable cost to make this task easier.

Any help appreciated. :

--
Dee Dub

Dee Dub Wrote:
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 replac
spokes as they break but have continual problems with broken spokes an
keeping it true and round.

I turn the bike upside down to straighten, which is pretty good to vie
sideways movement, but I keep getting lumps.

Lately, I have upgraded to heavier duty spokes which so far are holdin
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 ugl
ducking for less than $20 - every 6 weeks - this is unsustainable. Ne
wheel has been a thought, but this is already a new one, only used o
road and bike paths (not really hard terrain). I am still optimisti
about upgrading my skills to get it right.

Any clues/instructions/ links to resources appreciated. Also, hav
wondered if there are any tools /jigs that can be constructed/purchase
at reasonable cost to make this task easier.

Any help appreciated.

First figure out whether the issue is roundness or trueness. Truenes
is easy to fix, roundness harder to do properly (but then again
getting a wheel out of true is much mnore common than flat-spottin
one).

You've gotta learn to true them yourself. It takes very little tim
once you know what you're doing, and you can do it with the wheel o
the bike. Once you true them back to perfect every day for a week o
so, they'll be right for a long time.

There's some good detail at:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech/fix/?id=howfix_truing

Failing that, I work for beer

--
Shabby

You have wheel problems every 6 weeks???

I'm no techo - but this seems pretty often to me. I have always used a
road bike (the same one) for both training/racing and commuting (only
'cause I have to tho, would love a dedicated commuter that I could
fling around a bit...). I don't throw it around or anything, but only
get the wheels trued by the LBS every 6-12 months. Again - I'm no techo
or 'perfectionist' (I just don't have the time to spend lovingly
caressing my top-of-the-line Sora groupset, or tickling my spoke
nipples...), but NEEDING to true the wheel or fix spokes every 6 weeks
just sounds wrong. Even with an extra 90+ kg riding above them...

I would suggest looking closely at your wheel/rim choice, or looking
closely at your riding technique (exactly how many potholes, etc, are
you riding through??). And getting a proper mechanic to build/true your
wheel (maybe you are making a small but important 'structural error'
when replacing your spokes??).

Best of luck,
Absent Husband (who's *just* on the right side of 90kg...)

Dee Dub wrote:
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.

90+ here and I've had two instances of a spoke loosening up in 12+
months. The first wheel of similar build did 2+ years of racing with no
problems other than needing new bearings in the American Classic hubs.

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

Sounds like you and your LBS need to learn how to get the tension
correct on your spokes. I suck at wheel-anything but needing a true
every 6 weeks is wrong unless you are riding cross country with them!
Take them to another shop for a proper job or do it yourself after
reading Sheldon Brown's www.sheldonbrown.com wisdom on the matter.

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.

Only roads and paths? No smashing into curbs? You need more or more even
tension in your spokes. Only poorly built wheels will go out of true
this quick (barring accidents of course).

hippy

Dee Dub wrote:
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.



I worked out a way of truing for roundness without purchasing stands etc
the other weekend. I've got a vice on an old set of drawers. I put the
wheel in the vice then moved the whole thing next to a wall so I could
tell which areas were too close to the wall and which were too far. This
worked much better for me than anything I ever achieved with the wheel
in the frame.

DaveB "king of the cheapskates"

Dee Dub Wrote:
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 replac
spokes as they break but have continual problems with broken spokes an
keeping it true and round.

I turn the bike upside down to straighten, which is pretty good to vie
sideways movement, but I keep getting lumps.

Lately, I have upgraded to heavier duty spokes which so far are holdin
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 ugl
ducking for less than $20 - every 6 weeks - this is unsustainable. Ne
wheel has been a thought, but this is already a new one, only used o
road and bike paths (not really hard terrain). I am still optimisti
about upgrading my skills to get it right.

Any clues/instructions/ links to resources appreciated. Also, hav
wondered if there are any tools /jigs that can be constructed/purchase
at reasonable cost to make this task easier.

Any help appreciated.

As I see it, you have two problems: spoke breakage and spoke
loosening. These _can_ be related, but don't have to be.

You can reduce your spoke breakage problem by stress relieving you
spokes. Use some gardening gloves and squeeze pairs of spokes togethe
as hard as you can, about halfway up. Go all the way around, squeezin
pairs of spokes really, really hard. If they break, they neede
replacing anyway - you won't be able to break new spokes (unless yo
have the grip of a gorilla - I don't). This process helps reduce stres
in the elbows of the spokes, reducing the chance they will break fro
fatigue.

If your wheels go out of true without a breakage, then they ar
loosening as the spoke nipple unscrews itself off the spoke threads
This can happen in a couple of ways. First, you may have "spok
wind-up" - you turn the nipple with the wrench, but instead o
advancing along the thread, it sticks and just twists the spoke. Yo
start riding and eventually (or straight away), the vibration an
repeated cycling of loading and unloading the spokes will untwist th
spoke and throw your wheel out of true. You can reduce the incidence o
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 tighte
a half turn and then back off a quarter turn.

Second, your spokes might not have been installed with enoug
tension... you need a lot of tension. In the absence of the right too
(tensiometer), I have three rules of thumb: (1) it has to be ver
difficult to tighten any further; (2) you hear an F when you pluck th
spokes (a child's tenor recorder has an F that you can use). This is
pretty high note (around 440Hz), but it gets you in the neighbourhoo
of the right answer. (3) After you tension the spokes, stress reliev
again. If the wheel stays true when you stress relieve, you tighte
again until it doesn't - THEN you back off the tension to the last on
that worked.

Finally, get the "roundness" direction true first, then lateral. I
might take a few iterations, but roundness takes more turns to adjus
than lateral, so it makes sense to use lateral trueness as the fin
tuning step.

You'll need a spoke wrench and something to hold your wheel that yo
measure its trueness. I used a rim trainer with a couple of well place
rulers held on with sticky tape. Other people with more money opt for
truing stand.

It isn't as complicated as it sounds, and the rec.bicycles.tech FAQ a
well as www.sheldonbrown.com are _excellent_ resources.

Happy truing!
Ritc

--
ritcho

Thanks to all.

Heaps of great info here. I'll be busy over the next few nights an
weekends tweaking and twisting.

Major issues a
quality of original purchase (LBS let me down here IMHO)
quality of maint (soon to improve - MANY THANKS!)
use - i don't treat the bike very hard at all compared to some I know.

Many thanks for help and constructive input.

Dee Du

--
Dee Dub

"ritcho" wrote in message
...

..........
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
--
ritcho

I scored a set of 27" steel road forks from Rebel Sport for $2 in the
bargain bin. I carefully spread them wide enough to accept a rear wheel
(put them on ground, trod on one arm, pulled up the other). I then used a
few reflector mounts and steel springs that I had in the shed to make my own
"truing stand". It works pretty well and I do roundness by attaching a
ruler with rubber bands to the forks and slowly sliding it up until the
wheel starts to hit it.

http://www.users.tpg.com.au/adsl4xun/Truing%20Stand.JPG

Not very pretty but works pretty good and cost bugger all.

Ride On,

Gags

Dee Dub Wrote:
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 replac
spokes as they break but have continual problems with broken spokes an
keeping it true and round.

snip

Any help appreciated.

Something Absent Husband alluded to which may be causing you grief: th
quality of rims is very variable on bikes sub-$1000. If the factory di
a bad job on the wheel in the first place, no amount of tweaking wil
get it right once two or three spokes have gone. Your best recous
would be a tough rim, and a set of DT, Wheelsmith or Sapim spokes buil
to an even tension. The hub's probably alright, unless it's a stee
3-piece jobbie, in that case, throw the whole lot in the bin, get
Deore (or LX,XT) hub, a Velocity, Mavic, WTB, Ritchey OCR et c
freeride/all-mountain rim, and build the bugger up tight. 3 cross
nothing else. That should work for the foreseeable future. Oh, an
learn to ride light.

M"dogmatic"

--
mfhor