How to True a Bicycle Wheel

Video Transcript

"Now I can demonstrate how to properly true the wheel. Alright let's take a close look at the final truing of this wheel. We're also going to take note of the roundness of the wheel. If we put our feeler gages up so they're just hitting the side of the rim here, and we make our way around, we see one spot where we're just touching. There it is. Now, because that spot is just touching on the left side, we want to de-tension the left side spokes and tension the right side spokes in that immediate area. If you put your spoke wrench on to the nipple, turning it counter clockwise as you look at it from the outside how you're de-tensioning the spoke. By turning the spoke driver clockwise on a as you look at it from the outside of the wheel, you're tensioning that spoke. So, we want to move the rim to the right slightly, I'm going to add a little bit of tension here, and subtract a little bit of tension here. And that's going to move that rim off to the right side. We've done a little bit better, one more spot to work on. Remember that wheel truing and wheel building is a series of small and fine adjustments. Don't get too crazy turning these nipples three or four turns, you'll have a radically upset wheel. You want to do subtle adjustments, taking careful look at what you've done at each step. Here's a way to confirm that you've calculated your spokes correctly. When the final tension is in the wheel, you should see just the top of the spoke sticking into the slot of the nipple, shouldn't stick through the wheel, you don't want to puncture your inner tube. But yet it should have full engagement in the nipple."