Originally Posted by
Doohickie
I did that to my wheel the other day .. I took it to another LBS and they gave it to some guy in the shop who grabbed onto the rim opposite the bent area and hit it HARD on the floor to knock it back into shape more or less.... inspected it and then hit it one more time. About 10 minutes of adjusting the spokes and it's almost as good as new.
The thing with that method, although fast and effective, is that while it certainly can get the wheel back to round you'll usually end up with the spokes battling residual deformations in the rim, with fairly uneven spoke tensions as the result.
Depending on lots of things this might still leave you with a serviceable and reasonably durable wheel, but for anything more than a ride-home fix I definitely prefer straightening the rim while untensioned first over that method.