cny-bikeman, I conveyed essentially the same thing to an elderly friend who lent his mountain bike to a portly grandson who slammed into a 1 foot high curb and tacoed the rear wheel (the grandson pulled the front wheel up to avoid the curb, but his full body weight was on the rear wheel when it slammed the high curb and he was subsequently tossed off the bike). It wasn’t possible to ride the bike home and the rear of the bike had to be carried as it wouldn’t roll.

I told the elderly friend that I’d be glad to dismantle the wheel so I could straighten the rim, and then I’d true it to virtual perfection. He responded with, “It doesn’t need to be taken apart, just trued up again.” I replied, “those spokes didn’t suddenly loosen, and yet, the rim is wildly out of alignment therefore, the rim is most definitely bent and until you straighten the rim, you’re never going to regain the greater majority of wheel integrity that it once had and it’s going to need that integrity if your portly grandson is going to be riding it again. He knew I was correct, so he said, “You’re sure you can reassemble it and true it afterward?” I replied, “Look at that wheel; how could anyone not be able to do better than that?” We both chuckled. Then I said, “It’ll be a piece of cake for me, as I’ve done this many times and it’s something I enjoy doing. Wait until you see how bent the rim is once all the spokes have been removed and wait until you see how straight I make the rim prior to reassembly.”

When he saw how bent the rim was and that the rim wasn’t some flimsy component of the wheel (hence, not readily bent back into shape by hand), that’s when he realized how important it was that the rim be straightened. He was equally impressed by how well I had straightened the rim prior to re-lacing it to the hub. Just 30 minutes into tightening the spokes, the wheel was already near perfect true and only required a bit of tweaking to look brand new. It’s been working fine for the last 2 years now (and his portly grandson hasn’t gotten any lighter).