On this bike, I have sadly taco'd the front wheel. (I was trying out a new hitch & borrowed rack for the first time, and best I can figure, when I scraped in a driveway, the wheel must have hit the ground).

Radial I don't know if it's all that bad, but there's a sideways wobble that's at least an inch, maybe two. Please advise me on my options. FYI it's a 29er front wheel, WTB I-19 rim, 32 spokes, 15mm thru-axle, disc brake.

1. Do nothing, b/c of disc brakes, I can still ride it.

2. Curb-stomp the wheel and try to get it straighter.

3. Buy a replacement rim and rebuild it. I would need tubeless-compatible, and would like to get wider than the current 19mm, to support maybe as wide as a plus (3.0) tire. And of course 32 holes. What are the cheapest options?

4. I have a dumpster-salvage 32-hole 29er rear wheel with a Roval (i.e. spesh?) rim that is not too beat up (fairly straight, a few dings). Rim transfer? I haven't measured precisely yet, but since spokes have like at least 5mm of thread, that means there's at least a couple mm margin of error in ERD for a match, right?

Options 3 and 4 involve me attempting my first wheel"build". In case I can't tension the spokes well, I would recourse to LBS. Shouldn't cost too much to just tension up a wheel.

I'd back off all the spokes to get an idea on how the rim actually is.
I had a similar incident on the factory rear wheel on my hybrid.
I did enough of a nose stand that the rear came at least 3 feet off the ground and bounced back hard (at an angle) as I managed to step off to the side. (new to the bike)
The rim looked similar to what you describe.
I backed off all the spokes and the rim was fine. Just a really badly tensioned wheel.

That's an interesting option, I will try that asap (tonight). Hopefully sitting for 4 days didn't make the rim bend permanently...

And once I've got all the spokes loose, I'm committed to a tensioning anyways. If the rim still looks unsalvageable (and gentle curb-stomping can't coax it back), I'm in position to try the rim-swap.

At the time, I'd just purchased the Park TM-8 stand and did the tension by feel.
I ordered the tension meter. I later picked up a used TS-2 stand and started building wheels.

Well in my case, the wheel was (hopefully) not "really badly tensioned", as I had been riding it for months, and near the beginning I did go through and tighten a bunch of spokes, IIRC there were a handful that came finger-loose.

When I did the tension "by feel", it turned out I was undertensioned by more than I'd like to admit.

The first thing I'd try is simply truing the wheel and see if it is acceptable.

I'm seeing the WTB i19 rims aren't too expensive.
WTB ST i19 29er TCS Tubeless Compatible MTB Bike Wheel Rim 32H Hole NE | Random Bike Parts

Or, even complete wheelsets.
WTB TCS i19 MTB Wheelset 29" 32H QR15 135mm *Take-off* | Bikewagon

Rebuilding would be a good project.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the rim was permanently bent the moment you dragged it on the ground. Sitting for 4 days or a month or for 5 minutes won't change that.

With a disc wheel, you don't need to be quite as true as you do with a rim brake but I would suggest not spending too much time on trying to get the wheel straight. A rim swap is highly probable.

Hey cool, 10+ available of those i19s wheelsets, and also 10+ available of these SpeedDisc wheelsets, which don't say but searching elsewhere seem to be 23mm wide.

That's a great option, I will keep that in my back pocket, gives me more confidence to attempt a free rim transfer!

You can bash the wheel on the ground and see if that will get it close. Then work with the spokes to true it. Sounds horrible, but can work.
Or loosen all the spokes and see how bent the rim is. You can get it close buy putting two by fours at the bend point and put your weight on the rim in an effort to straighten it.
You can take the old rim (or a new one) and tape it to the bent one and move the spokes to the good one and tension and true it up.

Yes, when I said "curb-stomp", I meant shorthand for that...

Try to keep an open mind as you price out your options. One of the dirty little truths is that you can usually buy a whole new pre-built wheel for equal or even less than you can buy the parts to lace up the same wheel yourself.

You are pretty specific about what you want. If you don't get it the first time you are probably going to be disappointed.

FWIW, scraping a wheel on a rear mounted bike rack is fairly common.

I would agree for if RubeRad was building a wheel from scratch but not for a rim replacement. The rim he needs is fairly cheap.

I did it! I loosened all the spokes (til I could finger the nipples), and set up a 'curb-stompin' jig. For probably 10 years I've been carrying around these 18" squares of plywood cut from a full sheet that I bought for a woodworking project that I never got around to. 12 of those, spread out in 4 stacks of 3, gave a good flat platform to rest the rim all the way around with room for the hub bits to dangle in the middle. Easy to see where the rim is touching, and where it's rising, remove the top plywood from where it's rising, and flex it downwards (to a known max deflection of the thickness of the plywood, which was 1/2")

First just flexing, then putting more weight on it, then planking, then standing, then bouncing. Man, that rim is surprisingly strong! Finally I got it to close enough to straight that I would expect to mostly be able to true out the rest.

Tensioned up the wheel, without a truing stand or even mounting it in the upside down fork. I guess holding the thru-axle as still as possible in my hand and spinning the wheel, is kind of a truing stand. Finger tighten all the way around, then one full turn all the way around, another full around, a half-turn around, a couple quarter-turns around, a little spot truing, and I'm happy.

It still has a very visible wobble, but I think the side-to-side range is like total 1cm now, instead of over an inch. I will see it when I ride, and it will remind me, I didn't have to spend $120+shipping.

This is true. But in this case (depending on shipping cost), $120 for a wheelset would have been a good value. A replacement for my front wheel, and a replacement for my wife's rear wheel, which has never fully recovered from a double-wheel hit crossing a deep rut that blew out both tires. But that's the beauty of discs, it doesn't really matter!

If you don't have a truing stand, just true it on the bike. If you remove the tire, and then mount the wheel to the bike, it's a little easier to see the area's that need adjustment.

Agreed, You can true to tighter tolerances if you want by tying a zip-tie around the seat or chainstays for reference.

As far as milking a bit more life out of the wheel, it appears you've done o.k., but I'd be quite surprised if the spoke tension is anywhere near balanced after working with such a bent wheel, so expect broken spokes and ongoing maintenance to keep it working. I would keep that in mind and start budgeting for a new rim and spokes now.

It may not bother you too much, but 1 cm of wobble on a wheel would drive my crazy.

-Jeremy

I would have thought so too, but the rim got I think close enough to straight from bending that it's not too bad. Recall I tensioned up the wheel starting to finger tight on all the nipples, then the same amount of turns all the way around gradually for 5-6 rounds. Surprisingly little spot truing beyond that, probably less than 10 quarter turns here and there. So I don't know if the overall tension is proper, or if the wheel is dished, or if the whole rim is slanted compared to the hub or what, but balanced spoke tension I think I've got.

But there is also the significant possibility that the trauma overstressed some spokes, that may well lead to early spoke failure as well. I'll be keeping my eye on it.


Like I said, only because that 1cm sings to me "$$ saved!"