Bicycle Mechanics - wrecked!

I was hit by a car yesterday. I'm fine--just some scrapes and a little muscle soreness today, but nothing serious. Anyway, the car trashed my newly built rear wheel. The rim is bent.

Question:

The wheel is new--about a month old. None of the spokes look particularly damaged even now, but when I take the thing apart, if I find spokes that are straight and unbent, are they reusable? Or is it better just to start fresh? The guy's going to pay for my new wheel, but I'm not particularly keen on wasting money, even if it isn't mine.

I was hit by a car yesterday. I'm fine--just some scrapes and a little muscle soreness today, but nothing serious. Anyway, the car trashed my newly built rear wheel. The rim is bent.

The wheel is new--about a month old. None of the spokes look particularly damaged even now, but when I take the thing apart, if I find spokes that are straight and unbent, are they reusable? Or is it better just to start fresh? The guy's going to pay for my new wheel, but I'm not particularly keen on wasting money, even if it isn't mine.
The spokes are probably OK, even if they are bent.

Easiest way to do this is to tape the new rim to the old rim and move the spokes over one at a time.

See also http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuilding

Sheldon "Fellow Cheapskate" Brown

are you suing the car owner? :mad:

Thanks Sheldon.


are you suing the car owner? :mad:

nah, unless he tries to get out of paying for the parts I need to fix the bike. I'm also going to make him pay me the wages I lost because I was working at the time, and am supposed to work tonight. i'm just now starting to check out the bike and see if anything else is broken, but right now he owes me a rim, a chain, and a helmet.

so, unrelated to the crash, the washer inside the crank mount won't come out. fancy ideas to get it out?

is the frame straight???