Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Busted

A spoke. Probably shoved it through the rim into the tube. I've got options, but it's a pain.

Buy a trueing stand, 50 dollars, and a spoke, and hopefully figure out how to true the wheel.

Get the rim trued, and a new spoke. 30 bucks.

Get new rims. 169 from bensbikes dot com.

Just when I thought I'd be spending cash on the little one's bike, not mine...

@#$@#$@#$@#$.

A spoke. Probably shoved it through the rim into the tube. I've got options, but it's a pain.

Buy a trueing stand, 50 dollars, and a spoke, and hopefully figure out how to true the wheel.

Get the rim trued, and a new spoke. 30 bucks.

Get new rims. 169 from bensbikes dot com.

Just when I thought I'd be spending cash on the little one's bike, not mine...

@#$@#$@#$@#$.

How about buy a spoke or more and borrow my trueing stand?

How about buy a spoke or more and borrow my trueing stand?


I'll email you.. or actually, I have.

For replacing one or two spokes you don't need a truing stand. Here is what you do. Cut out the broken spoke/s and replace it/them with a new one/s of the correct length. Loosen all the spokes on the wheel. When you get them all about the same loose tension take a piece of tape and tape it across the forks/seatstays whichever is the end of the bike you are working on and use the tape to gauge the runout or roundness of the wheel when it is installed in the frame and spining with the tape placed near the outside edge of the rim. Start to tighten the nipples in 1/2 turn at a time as you go around the wheel, do this until you get it up to the approximate tension and then stop. Check the tension against the sound made by striking the other wheel's spokes and trying to duplicate the sound of the wheel you are working on. Also feel the spoke tension by pinching adjacent spokes together on both the good wheel and the one you are working on. Close is good enough at this point. fixed wheel have very little dish in them and that simplifies the whole process if you are doing the back wheel. Make sure the wheeel does not have a "hop" against the tape as it spins. Next tape a piece of matchstick or some stiff item to the fork/seatstays and adjust the wow out of the wheel with the match stick pointing at the brake surface of the rim coming at it from the side. Adjust the spoke in/out depending on whether you need to move the rim away from the matchstick or toward it. This should provide you with a wheel that is very close to perfect if you do this with a fair degree of attention to minute movement of the wheel when you adjust the spokes 1/4 turn at a time. Loosening the side that is touching the matchstick and tightening the spoke that is away from the matchstick, 1/4 turn. When you think you have it close, take the wheel out of the frame and reverse it. See if the matchstick stays at the same distance from the rim on the reversed side. If it isn't then you have to tighten/loosen the rim relative to the needed movement of the rim until it comes into alignment. I used to do this as a way of building wheels when I first started out and it seemed to work out fine. It is longer and more labor intensive than if you had a trueing stand and wheel dish guage but you are only talking about one wheel and saving money. Try it and see what happens. You won't be out any more money than if you didn't do anything except for the spoke/s. Then if you are successfull you can pat yourself on the back and bragg about how much money you saved. I hope this is clear enough to understand. Let me know how it goes and if I can help you any further.

Fixedgearhead

Boy, that's what I was going to say. I just did all that. I wound up having to replace eight spokes though. I had trashed the outside/pulling spokes when the chain did a jump on my and cut the spokes. I was lucky I broke only one spoke.

What I have done in builidng my wheels is get them built and trued as best I can then take it to the LBS. We have one with a shop that runs 6.00 an hour to wrench on bikes. You get to do the work, and one of the mechs will walk you through it and check your work. Having built several wheels I've learned to do the truing at home pretty well. You can use your bike as a truing stand, if the wife doesn't mind the bike on the kitchen table.

Good luck.

Spokes are cheap and a truing stand will be useful over and over again. I asked around at work and bought one from a guy who no longer used his...the cost: $20.

I do need a dish guage but I'm still learning and haven't built a wheel yet...that starts tomorrow if all goes well.

Good luck.

PJ

In most stands, you can dish by flipping the wheel around on the stand. I don't like it as much as using the dish gauge, but then I am a tool *****.

Hmmm. Seems I found a bad word. Oops.