Originally Posted by
Jeff Neese
To be fair, I haven't bought that many new bikes in my life, and the last time I did it was a 1983 Trek 720, and then another one (an '84) for my girlfriend at the time. Truing and tensioning the wheels was definitely part of what they did for me, on those bikes. I toured a lot of miles on those wheels and never needed a thing.
I've heard other shop owners say they did that too, but for only higher-end bikes or by customer request. Most shops offer some sort of tune-up after a period of riding, don't they? Would they check then? We all agree that wheel truing and spoke tension is important. I'm wondering how that happens for the average Joe, or maybe a first-timer.
Back in the day, it was supposed to be part of the bicycle preparation process when the bike came out of the box. Some shops did it during preparation and a number didn’t. Some did wheel checks on tune-ups but lots of bikes never went back for the tune-up. Most of the off-center wheels I’ve seen have been on bikes that probably went into a garage after a few rides and never saw the light of day until they were donated. Bikes that saw more use either got the problems corrected by the user or some mechanic or the wheels broke and were replaced.