Bicycle Mechanics - Truing new fangled wheels for an old fogey

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TJHOO
12-25-05, 07:47 PM
Getting back into cycling after a hiatus of about 1/2 a decade.
Had prev ridden low profile Maxic rims and trued them consistently.
Now on 2 new bikes am about to start riding have more aero wheels w/ fewer spokes:
Training Campy Ventos: 24front/27rear spokes; 810g front/945g rear
racing Easton Ascent II's 18front/24rear spokes; 610g front; 810g rear

If o/w riding conditions same will these require more truing than the older traditional Mavic rims since have fewer spokes??

Any difference in truing them?

The Ventos have a triple spoke group pattern.

http://www.campagnolo.com/wheels.php?gid=2&cid=10
http://www.eastonbike.com/WHEELS/models/wheels_ascent_II.html

Thanks in advance,

Bobby Lex
12-26-05, 04:37 AM
I have a pair of Velomax Orion II's with about 3000 miles on them. They are perfect and haven't needed to be touched as far as truing is concerned. But looking at them, they appear to true up in standard fashion. They use a standard spoke wrench. The spokes are not paired, so there are no big gaps between spokes to worry about. Doesn't look any different than a standard wheel.

I have no experience with those Campy wheels.

Bob
HillRider
12-26-05, 06:51 AM
Getting back into cycling after a hiatus of about 1/2 a decade.
Had prev ridden low profile Maxic rims and trued them consistently.

I expect the wheels you rode 5 or 10 years ago weren't tensioned properly to begin with. I've been riding seriously for over 20 years and have had to do very little truing on well built wheels.

Over the years, I've had wheels built with Mavic's Open 4CD and CXP-33, Trek's house brand Matrix and Sun Metal's Mistral rims, all on various 32 hole Shimano hubs, laced 3X with either straight 14 ga or Wheelsmith XL14 spokes. Several sets of these wheels were ridden from 20,000 to 30,000 miles and were replaced because the rims wore through the brake tracks and cracked from abrasion. I never broke a spoke on any of them.

With all of these wheel sets, I don't think I had to true them more than once or twice in their entire service lives and then it was only a minor touch up. And yes, I'm fussy about trueness and know how to both measure and correct out-of-true wheels.

My point is that with properly built wheels, frequent truing should not be needed unless you badly abuse them. The trick seems to be having them built and tensioned properly from the start.