Mountain Biking - when to relace wheel

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rotbeer
02-26-06, 08:00 PM
The rear wheel on my kona stinky has one spoke that is quite loose. Though it's still in place, I can move it around about half an inch in either direction... I could probably pull the spoke out of the hub if I wanted to. Being a noob to bikes, I'm wondering what I should do, have the one spoke replaced, or get the entire wheel relaced, as there are a couple other spokes that aren't as tight as it seems they should be. Also, do I risk damaging my wheel by riding with a loose spoke?

concernicus
02-26-06, 08:04 PM
to me it seems like you could just tighten it, tension the whole wheel, and be on your way. a worst case scenario would be that you have to replace the spoke, in which case you would put a new one on there and tension the wheel. you dont need to relace the wheel.
pete620
02-26-06, 08:07 PM
Take the wheel to a shop and have it trued. You only need to have your spoke niples tightened and/or adjusted. Removing the spoke will weaken the wheel, and there is no need to have the wheel rebuilt unless you have broken spokes or nipples.

dirtbikedude
02-27-06, 09:58 AM
I would ask, how old are the wheels? Have they ever been rebuilt? Is only one spoke loose, a few or all of them?

A lot of the time you can get away with either tightening the loose spoke or replaceing it. If the nipple is stripped you will need to replace that as well.

What I would recomend is take the wheel to a trusted shop and have them replace the spoke and nipple then true the wheel.

DBD:beer:
rotbeer
02-27-06, 05:50 PM
eep I'm not exactly sure what getting the wheel trued means... But I went to a shop, they tightened some spokes on their device. The rim is slightly dented, slightly meaning even if I were using v-brakes, it wouldn't hardly be a problem. Never the less, they said they could fix the rim for about $20, or maybe it was $15. I'm thinking about doing this, BUT then I think that if a spoke were to become loose again and I didn't find out immediately, then I'd be in the same position now. So I'm not sure wether I want to spend the cash or not. When compared to the front wheel though, the average tension of the rear spokes is not as tight, so I'm thinking of relacing and fixing the rear wheel...