Bicycle Mechanics - old wheel question

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baltazar
04-17-04, 09:46 PM
I have a 12-year old commuter (Raleigh road bike) and the rear wheel seems to be always getting out of 'true'. I am not very heavy nor do I ride on bad roads. Does this mean that it needs to be rebuilt (replace all spokes)?

bmw_maniac
04-18-04, 04:25 AM
I had a wheel that did that once, and yea it was about 11-12 years old. Check the rim itself for cracks and gaps running between the spokes. That's what I found on my bike, and the spokes were ready to pop out at any time. Extremely dangerous. I got a new bike, andhavn't ridden the other one for over a year now....... one day I might get around to finding a new wheel for it..... haha
NZLcyclist
04-18-04, 04:28 AM
It may need to be rebuilt with a new rim. Whenever rebuilding a wheel, make sure you use new spokes. Rims do take a fair bit of stress over time, and get fatiqued

Retro Grouch
04-18-04, 07:07 AM
I have a 12-year old commuter (Raleigh road bike) and the rear wheel seems to be always getting out of 'true'. I am not very heavy nor do I ride on bad roads. Does this mean that it needs to be rebuilt (replace all spokes)?

Most likely it's lived out it life. I can think of three possibilities:

1. Bent rim. Somewhere along the line, you've bent the rim. When this happens, in order to make the rim look straight again, you have to tighten the spokes on one side and take almost all of the tension off of the other side. Such uneven spoke tension is the receipt for making the wheel wobble again in short order.

2. Worn rim. Every time that you use your brakes, you wear a tiny bit of aluminum off of your braking surface. Eventually the rim wears to the point that it is no longer safe to ride. New rims, at least in Europe, now have wear indicators built into them. Can't tell from where I'm sitting, of course, but on a 12 year old commuter bike I'd suspect rim wear of being a problem.

3. Bad spoke tension adjustment. Repeated adjustments don't always bring bike parts back to as new condition. Sometimes mechanics pile one mis-adjustment onto another and progressively fubar a component until it diesn't work at all anymore. Front derailleurs on STI triples and wheel spoke adjustments are the two most frequent culprets.