Bicycle Mechanics - Truing a wheel with double spokes

The Xero wheels on my '09 Giant OCR1 have that weird paired spoke arrangement. When I bought the bike, the kid at the LBS warned me not to try to adjust the spokes. I had no reason to do so until recently, when I noticed a slight deflection as the rear rim passes through the brakes.

Since I think it would be better to correct it before it gets worse, I'm wondering if there's anything fundamentally different about truing this kind of wheel. I've trued conventional spoked wheels many times over the years, so I know how to do it. I'm just not sure how to approach this one.

BTW, I looked around for videos and old threads on the topic, but since I'm not clear on the terminology, I'm not sure what to look for.

My '07 Giant TCX also has those wheels. I too would like to know how to true the wheels when they get out of true.

It's not too much different from normal wheels. You just have to keep in mind that you're adjusting opposing spokes that affect the same section of rim. I think the rest is intuitive, but I'll try to think up a specific explanation and post back if I can.

Welcome to the world of low spoke count wheels! If ther are simply out of true, you true 'em up like any other wheel, but if they are out of true as a result of hitting something you may be out of luck. With a 32 hole rim you could sort of pull out a bend, but not so with those due to a larger space between spokes. All depends where the hop is.

Thanks. No damage--just routine, end of the season maintenance. Little blip.

Thanks. No damage--just routine, end of the season maintenance. Little blip.

You can easily screw up a wheel with paired spokes like that taking out small blips if you have no experience. My suggestion it so leave it alone if it's <= 0.5~1mm and it's not rubbing your brakes. If you do want to attempt this, do VERY small adjustments and mentally record how many turns you are doing for an adjustment. So that you can easily undo them when you feel you are losing control. Experiment and see with 1/2 spokes an adjustment has on the rest of the rim trueness and take it slow.

Be carfeful. Rims don't need to be hyper true.

I tried to click on 'be carfeful'.
Alas, no funny.

I agree with Operator. The fewer spokes a wheel has, the more it might be out of true and still have to be tolerated.

Also, with the low spoke count, I'd recommend watching the tension carefully. I've seen Bontrager wheels start to crach eyelets shortly after the person had an inexperienced shop true them.

Welcome to the world of low spoke count wheels! If ther are simply out of true, you true 'em up like any other wheel, but if they are out of true as a result of hitting something you may be out of luck. With a 32 hole rim you could sort of pull out a bend, but not so with those due to a larger space between spokes. All depends where the hop is.

+1
The truing process is the same, you just need to be a bit more careful and make changes in small increments. Actually I don't like paired spokes or low spoke count wheels for several reasons including no control in the big gaps.

I managed to true my 20-spoke paired radial front wheel. Very slow and carefully. My tension-meter was useless as the tension was 180kgf to off-the-scale by who knows how much. But I managed to get it true enough not to rub the brakes and appear okay.

The 4th time - I junked the stupid piece of cost-cutting, marketing-hype. Much better with a "real" wheel.

I usually just use the non-drive side spokes on the rear to fine tune a wheel. No reason you can't do the same. I am supposing that the drive side spokes are at the proper tension.