Bicycle Mechanics - Dented Rim

Well earlier I managed to hit a rather large pothole and dented/bent the rear rim. Its not bad at all. It just is pushing out a little on the sides where it hit. Just enough to rub on the break pads. Tire didnt lose air when I hit it.

Is there any thing I can do to bend it back? or should I just leave it?

Rim is done.

The rim may very well be salvagable. Remove the tire and use a large adjustable wrench set to a snug fit on the rim's side wall to bend the dent back into line. If the dent isn't too bad the rim should be quite usable after this fix.

Many have accomplished rim repairs with a variety of success. If you try HillRider's suggestion just go easy on the adjustment process, in other words be patient and sneek up on it. It is possible to make it worse. Be prepared to replace the rim just in case but a simple repair may add many miles of use before you have to do that.

Sometimes you find that after going to the trouble of meticulously bending the sidewalls back in you have little kinks at each end of the repaired section that still catch on the brake pads...*and* there is a flat spot on the rim at the impact point which you didn't notice before because you were focussing on the obvious flared out bit. The flat spot may not cause any immediate problems but because one or two spokes are now looser at that point, the uneven spoke tension will cause the rim to go gradually out of true.

But go for it. I always do.

Use HillRider's technique then see if the rim is still round.

Al