Owning a bicycle is very convenient and practical especially in places where there is so much traffic and difficulty in getting a parking place. With your bicycle, you can seamlessly glide through the throngs of people and various modes of transportation and reach your destination within several minutes.
However, owning a bike entails truing. Truing or straightening wheels seems to be the trickiest maintenance and repair job on a bicycle. It can be quite tedious as it is both time-consuming and frustrating. Cutting a grinding wheel to make surfaces run concentric with the axis or aligning a wheel to be concentric in one plane is one of those mysterious bike repairs often scaring and confusing most riders.
As easy as the concept may sound to be in wheel truing, it takes practice to get the feel for it. A biker who may try to true a wheel without proper knowledge could turn imperfection into disaster.
A truing stand can make this process easier as it gives feedback to where the wheel is out of true or where to tighten or loosen. Certainly, a truing stand is highly recommended especially when planning to true many wheels. A truing stand can be quite costly as it can land to over $100 – $200 so it’s cost-effective to build one. Another alternative is to shop online at auction sites like eBay.
A good wheel-builder can do remarkable things for a wheel that contains major damage. However, you can do minor truing on your own for your bicycle wheel by using a truing strand which will serve as your guide for indicating trueness.
Practice is the only way to test and improve your truing skills. Grab an old wheel and practice or you may start building and truing new wheels using new spokes and rims. Words of advice, though, safety glasses are very essential and useful as it’s possible for a spoke to snap while turning a wheel.