Realigning, also called truing, a bike wheel means repeating a basic spoke tightening technique on different spokes until the entire wheel is aligned straight up and down, with no wobble. A truing stand is the ideal tool for this task, but you can also turn your bike upside down to use your frame and brakes as a makeshift truing stand. If you choose the latter option, ensure your brakes and brake pads are centered around the bike wheel before truing. Otherwise, you may get unreliable results and overadjust or underadjust your wheel.
Step 1
Depress the tire valve until the tire is about halfway deflated. Place the wheel in the truing stand or turn your bicycle upside down. Center the wheel between the brakes or between the arms of the truing stand.
Step 2
Put a drop of light oil on the small tubes coming out of the rim into which the spokes insert. These small tubes are called spoke nipples.
Step 3
Spin the wheel and move the brake pads or truing stand caliper arms closer to the wheel until they scrape against the wheel, spinning the wheel for at least one complete rotation after the first scrape. Stop the spinning at the point of the loudest or most prolonged scrape. Rotate the wheel back and forth until you find the center of the scraping region, and identify the spoke closest to the center of the bulge that comes from the opposite side of the hub.
Step 4
Spin the wheel down so you're looking down on the spoke nipple of this spoke. Try the different sizes of the spoke wrench on the spoke nipple until you find a size that fits snugly without sliding when it's turned.
Step 5
Turn the spoke nipple counterclockwise one half rotation. Turn the spoke nipples coming from the same side of the hub on either side of the first spoke, about 1/4 turn.
Step 6
Spin the wheel again to test your work on this section, bringing the brake pads or truing stand arms to the same distance from the wheel. Frequently, you'll need to tighten the same spokes further, or tighten spokes to either side of the original set of spokes to fix a particularly untrue wheel.
Step 7
Repeat these steps as necessary and on different segments of the wheel. When you've eliminated all scrapes on the truing arms or brake pads at a certain distance, bring them closer and repeat the process, continuing until the wheel rim bulges no more than 1 mm or 1/16 inch from center all the way around. Tightening spokes to solve one problem in the wheel can often cause small irregularities in another part of the wheel.
Tips and Warnings
- On the rear wheel, the spokes on the right side of the hub, with the freewheel or cassette of gears, should be tighter than the spokes on the left side. Bicycle Tutor suggests tightening right-side spokes two turns for every one turn on the left side. These instructions cover lateral truing, or adjusting the side-to-side movement of the rim. Radial truing, in contrast, focuses on the up and down deviation of the rim and uses a slightly different process of spoke tightening to correct the irregularities.
Things You'll Need
- Multisize round spoke wrench
- Truing stand (optional)
- Bicycle tire pump
- Light bicycle oil
- Measuring tape
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