I was riding on a relatively smooth dirt road when my front wheel got a bad wobble for no apparent reason. I stopped and the tire looked like it wanted to taco but didn't. I was in the middle of nowhere and didn't feel like walking my bike for miles so I removed my front wheel, grasped it by the two "raised" areas and pressed the hub against a tree. It sprung into shape with just a tiny wobble to show anything had happened. I rode it slowly for about ten miles of dirt road to my truck.

The shop couldn't find anything wrong besides the wobble that they removed by truing it. I am a total newbie and I'm wondering if this sort of thing happens to others and if they keep using their wheels after it does.

Wheels don't typically go out of whack like that for no reason. Whenever that has happened to me, I've either hit something, crashed, or broken a spoke. Without knowing any of the specifics of your wheel, the only other thing I can think of is that the spokes may have been over-tensioned. That could result in an unstable wheel that has a propensity to buckle. A properly built wheel is remarkably stable, and will not go out of true when you're "just riding along."

You say the shop trued the wheel but didn't find anything else wrong with it. I would have them verify that they properly tensioned the spokes when they trued your wheel. If the spokes are fine, then I wouldn't worry about it.

By the way, you might try posting this in the Bicycle Mechanics forum. There are folks there that know a hell of lot about wheels. I'm just a newbie wheel builder.

I think that the problem is that the spokes weren't tensioned properly.

My experience with such things is that the rim is now bent and the spoke tension cannot be set equally and the wheel will keep going out of true.

I would replace it. Think "Ksyrium Equipe". http://cgi.ebay.com/Mavic-Ksyrium-Equipe-700c-Wheelset-Shimano-10spd-New_W0QQitemZ160044048221QQihZ006QQcategoryZ58097QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I'm sure its fine for "just riding along"...wheels don't usually fail catostrophically, but it might come out of whack more easily if its used for racing or hard trail riding

I thought about posting it in the mechanics forum but I tried here first to see if others experience this too.

as a wheelbuilder, i can tell you that it was probably over-tensioned. which is actually difficult to do, all things considered, but can certainly happen.

there are other explanations though, like ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and other things.