Emergency wheel repairs

Wheels are excellent at resisting forces that are in line with them, like supporting your weight, riding or jumping. However, they buckle easily under forces from the side, the kind of forces that are common when you crash. A common disaster is crashing and folding either wheel so badly it won’t turn between the brake blocks. The temptation is to release the offending brake and carry on riding, but clearly this is a bad idea – you’re careful for ten minutes, then you forget you only have one brake and pick up speed. And suddenly you’ve crashed again. Use these pages to straighten your wheel by adjusting the tension in your spokes.

Your rim is supported all the way around by the tension in your spokes. The tension in each spoke can be increased or reduced by tightening (anticlockwise) (A) or loosening (clockwise) (C) the spoke nipple, effecting the short section of the rim to which the spoke is attached. Alternate spokes are attached to opposite sides of the hub. Tightening a spoke that leads towards the right-hand side of the hub will move the rim toward the right (B); loosening this spoke will allow the rim to move toward the left. Truing wheels is about adjusting the tension in each spoke, so that the rim runs straight with no side-to-side wobble. This process is not the magic art that it’s often made out to be – as long as you’re careful…

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Bike Maintenance Tips, Tricks & Techniques (Digital) - 1 Issue, Bike Maintenance Tips, Tricks & Techniques 3rd Edition

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