Bicycle Mechanics - can i true my wheel without a tire on it?

I am waiting to get some new tires for an old trek i got for $5. right now there are no tires. the wheels desperately need truing. can i do it now, before the tires come? or does having the tire somehow effect the alignment of the wheel?

Definatly. All wheels are built without tires and trued before installing a tire. In fact, removing the tire is recommended for a proper truing job.

thanks. right after i posted i thought about it a little more and looked at ark tool repair and their pics had no tire, so i figured i was alright.

another quick truing question:
note these wheels are old. from a Trek 360
in some of the places where the rim hits the brake pad (what i am using as a gauge), the spokes on the oposite side, are pretty tight compared to the ones on the the side that is touching. the ones on the side that is touching are actually pretty loose. i can deflect them quite a bit by lightly squeezing them. the ones on the oposite side are very firm. do i have another problem?

in some of the places where the rim hits the brake pad (what i am using as a gauge), the spokes on the oposite side, are pretty tight compared to the ones on the the side that is touching. the ones on the side that is touching are actually pretty loose. i can deflect them quite a bit by lightly squeezing them. the ones on the oposite side are very firm. do i have another problem?

Yup. You have a bent rim. The only adequate way to fix it is with a new rim. It might be cost effective to get a whole new wheel. Sorry.

Yup. You have a bent rim. The only adequate way to fix it is with a new rim. It might be cost effective to get a whole new wheel. Sorry.


Nope. Depends on the rim material. If it's aluminum or steel, I know from experience it's possible to dismount the rim from the spokes and straighten it. Steel is easier to work with that aluminum, I think, but that might be because the steel rim I got off a friend three days after the accident, the bend wasn't 'set' and it wasn't much to start with. The aluminum sat for three months bent to the living hells, but locked up to a rack anyway, until the local campus cleaning cut the lock and tossed the bike into a dumpster. I fished it out and spent about two weeks slaving over the rear wheel, but it's true as a dime now.

College Kid Repair Instructions:

Once you get the tension off, the rim will warp freely. Give it a few minutes to adjust itself, then lay it on a perfectly flat surface and mark the spots where it touches the ground with black washable marker, the 'peak' of the curve with red. Get a STURDY desser, open the drawer, and rest the red markings against the open edge of the drawer, the black one inside and against the 'top' of that hole the drawer coems out of, whatever THAT"s called. Press down, gently at first, increase the pressure until the rim's warped just about exactly opposite to what it was, hold for about two minutes, then release and lay it aside for an hour while the metal 'relaxes' again. Wash off the markings and repeat until true.

...then release and lay it aside for an hour while the metal 'relaxes' again. ...

You don't need to let it rest. Check out http://members.aol.com/biketune/align.htm for some good tips.

OOOo nice link.


I did this well before I found this forum, and at the time I had to mark the spokes and rim with nail polish so I could reassemble the wheel right, as I"d never rebuilt a wheel before. So I was kinda taking it easy and slow.

I'd like to know where zip22 states that the rim is either damaged or warped???? It seems to me that all is needed is to have the dish alignment checked and for the wheels to be trued.

Zip22, if the spoke deflection is looser on one side than the other and your talking about the FRONT wheel, then more than likely your dish is going to be off a bit. If your talking about the BACK wheel, that is normal if the spokes used on both the drive side and non-drive side are the same gauge. The drive side should have the higher tension due to the wheel being dished properly and the fact that drive side spokes are usually a millimeter or two shorter than the non-drive side spokes.

If you take your wheels to a bike shop to get trued it should cost $25-$40 bucks or so. It could be more if you need to replace any damaged spokes. If you want to tackle this job yourself, you'll need to do some research first. Proper tension is a prerequisite for a wheel to stay true. Otherwise, you'll find yourself retruing often or replacing broken spokes. I hope this helps.