Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
You shouldn't have to balance the wheels if their properly trued and tensioned. If you have a problem then the problem exist usually with the tires, simply moving the tire an 1/8 of turn at a time and retesting each time you move the tire will eventually by itself balance out without adding weight or tape. If that doesn't work simply moving the computer sensor magnet about 1/8th of the way around the wheel at a time and test each time to see if balances will solve abnormal problems the tire couldn't. If moving the tire doesn't solve the problem then you have a wheel issue which should not exist in today's wheels. but simply moving the computer magnet to the opposite side of the valve stem usually will erase any unbalance situations caused by a wheel. The rear wheel is not important, you will never feel an out of balance wheel in the rear unless you routinely ride over 45 mph and then it would be just a slight shaking in the seat not in the bars thus it can't disrupt handling.
All good quality aluminum rims were built with a bit of extra material on the opposite side of the valve hole to compensate for the weight of the valve, I would assume they would still do that with good quality CF wheels.
I didn't know that rims were built to be balanced, I was pleased to find out that my front wheel was in perfect balanced. I had noticed that on descents it felt very smooth compared to my other bikes, and sure enough, some of the others ones had definite heavy spots. My rear wheel, however has a slight imbalance.
Originally Posted by
Lenton58
I am no expert weight weenie, but my two cents worth anyway:
* Balance your wheels. Is this too obvious? No one seems mention doing this, so I'm wondering. Recently I was shocked at how much "thump" I took out a set of GP-4's with tubs with a bit of solder and tape. Could smoothness over a 50 Km stretch be a make-up factor for weight?
How do you go about balancing a wheel?