Bicycles Asked by Captain Hat on July 22, 2021
About six months ago something got caught in the spokes of my back wheel. The wheel was functional, but visibly untrue. I took it home and trued it with a spoke key, continually adjusting the rim brakes and using them to evaluate the straightness of the rim.
A while ago one of my colleagues told me that there’s risk that, because I did this without a truing stand, I may have over-tensioned one side of the wheel, rendering it straight but unstable. Is that possible, and could it be unsafe? Are there any other risks to consider when truing wheels without a stand?
A truing stand is a tool to speed-up the process. Using one does not stop the operator from doing it wrong.
A good technique can work well enough using a finger pressing lightly on the rim and leaning on the seat stay. Find the high spot, and twiddle the nipples till its less-high. Repeat on other side.
Rim brakes don't work well for me because they move around a bit. I have been known to strap a zip-tie onto the frame and use that as a pointer.
Finally, you can use a tension-meter on the wheel to gauge the spoke tension, or use your ear by tapping each spoke lightly with something metallic. The resulting sound should be ting-ting-ting like the wheel is talking conversationally. If you hear a high-pitched tink or a low twanggg then check that spoke; you can share the load around a bit more evenly in that area of the rim.
You can even find loose/tight spokes while destressing the wheel by squeezing pairs of spokes. Your fingers should be sensitive enough to show "hey this one feels different"
Correct answer by Criggie on July 22, 2021
There are very great risks in truing wheels, but none of those is related to a truing stand.
If a spoke is on the brink of failure (especially likely on a used wheel of unknown build quality since the spokes may not have been stress relieved initially, but can happen on a new wheel because new spokes can have undetected manufacturing defects that would have been detected if the wheel was used for few thousand kilometers), tightening it with a spoke wrench could break it. If a tensioned spoke breaks, the end shoots out at very great speed. If you have your eye in the path of the flying spoke, it WILL make you blind.
However, this can happen with a truing stand too. Nothing in a truing stand can prevent it. To prevent this from happening, true a wheel with at least the rim tape on, because it will catch the flying spoke end (assuming a high pressure rim tape here, not a low pressure rubber one). Also if you have a tire (which implies you have the rim tape), it will present an even greater barrier for flying spoke ends.
It may also be beneficial to always tension spokes which don't fly towards your face. You can for example use a habit of only tensioning spokes facing down. This may be easier if you have a truing stand.
Answered by juhist on July 22, 2021
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