How Do You Straighten a Bicycle Tire Rim?

Straighten your wheel by adjusting loose spokes.

Riding your bike over a pothole or some other road hazard can sometimes damage the rim on which your tire rests. While the tire protects the rim to a certain extent, the sudden jarring can loosen the spokes that give your rim its overall shape. This results in a rim that is no longer true and wobbles from side to side. Fortunately the damage isn't permanent. The same spoke tension that gave the rim strength and form before can be restored through a few careful adjustments

Things You'll Need

• Truing wrench
• Light lubricating oil

Instructions

1. Elevate the wheel that requires straightening. This can be done by placing the bike in a repair stand or by lifting the wheel whenever you turn it.

2. Turn the damaged wheel slowly, using the brake pads on either side of the rim as a reference. Wherever spokes are loose, the wheel develops a wobble in the opposite direction. The wobbly portion of the wheel will bulge in the direction of one of the brake pads.

3. Pluck each spoke in the area of the wobble. For comparison, pluck other spokes further along the wheel, where the wheel is straight. Loose spokes will give a relatively dull thud when plucked.

4. Place a drop of lubricant at the point where the loose spoke(s) enters the spoke nipple and where the nipple enters the rim. Each spoke has a nipple, linking the spoke to the rim.

5. Attach a truing wrench to the loose spoke, and give the spoke a quarter turn in a clockwise direction. After each turn, check your progress, by once again rotating the warped or damaged portion of the wheel past the brake pads. Steadily the warp will disappear as spoke tension pulls it back in line with the remainder of the rim.

References

• ParkTool: Wheel and Rim Truing
• SheldonBrown: Truing Wheels