A True Experience

By Allan Edmonds

After having some issues with bad tubes, which I'll report on separately, I realized my rear wheel had some very loose spokes and was badly out of true. So for the first time I took out my never-before-used spoke wrench, consulted my bike repair book, turned my bike upside down, and endeavored to fix things. I actually improved the wheel a little bit, so that at least it wasn't rubbing on the brake pads. But it still had a major wobble.

At that point John Bassett offered to loan me his professional quality Park Tools truing stand. I accepted the challenge and studied up some more on truing wheels, listened to John's voice of experience, and set to work on the wheel.

I removed the tire. I also lightly oiled each spoke nut. One of the things you need to avoid is just twisting the spoke without ever turning the screw end.

So I found the worst spot and loosened a couple of spokes on that side and tightened two or three on the other side. Then I repeated that process several times.

Overall the whole wheel was pitched slightly to one side so I also carefully loosened all spokes on that side a quarter turn and tightened the ones on the other side a quarter turn.

I checked for roundness of the wheel and didn't see any major problem. Then I checked for trueness again, made a few more adjustments and finally declared the job done.  I reinstalled the tire and was ready to go the next day.

It may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than before. And I was happy to use that spoke wrench I got for Christmas a couple years ago.