Bike Wheel Truing Review

Bike wheel truing is a technical term for straightening and rounding the wheels of a bicycle. A truing stand will, during bike repair and maintenance, allow you to diagnose several possible problems with bicycles: side-to-side wobble (lateral trueness), up-and-down wobble (radial trueness), height variation (concentrically untrue -- hub is off-center), flattened areas on the rim, incorrect dishing (spokes are longer on one side of a wheel than on the other side) and tilt (one side of the rim higher than another).

Wheel truing bike tools consist of spoke wrenches, a truing stand, truing meter, dishing tool and lubricant. The truing stand is used to hold the wheel in place while you true it. The most important quality in a truing stand is accuracy. The most popular bike truing stands are Park, Feedback, M-Wave, and the Minoura stand. Bike truing stands are available for purchase online or offline in a range of retail shops, including bike shops, hardware stores, home improvement stores or general retailers.

Lubricant and spoke wrenches are used to replace and adjust the spokes at the nipples, threaded nuts where the spokes attach to the rim. Using a Park spoke wrench allows for great adjustment of your bike's spokes. A truing meter is used to measure the tension in the spokes. A dishing tool compares the position of the rim and hub from one side of the wheel to the opposite side, to make sure that the wheel is concentrically balanced. The most popular brands of dishing tools are Park and Minoura.

You should check your bike regularly using a truing stand. A Park tools stand will allow you to check your bike for trueness about once a month which is suggested if you ride often. There are several reasons why it is important to true your bike wheels often. Your bike’s performance depends upon having wheels that are straight and round. The spokes of your bicycle are placed so that you can adjust the tension on the rim to determine how straight the wheel spins. If your bike has blades or a large disc instead of spokes, than it cannot be trued, and the wheel will need to be replaced if it is no longer straight.

In addition to causing the bike to move forward when they spin, wheels also cause the bike to slow down or stop when the brakes are applied. Many types of brakes use the rim as an aid in braking. If your bike wheel wobbles laterally, or is out of alignment, it will be difficult to adjust your brake pads.

Most bike wheels have a hub in the center of the wheel and spokes radiating out from the hub to both sides of the rim. The spokes exert a pulling force from the nipple towards the center of the wheel. Thus, you can make minor adjustments to the roundness of a wheel by tightening or loosening various spokes. Spokes also pull the rim to the left or right depending on which side of the rim they are attached. So you can also adjust the wheel laterally using the spokes. Finally, it is important to leave all the spokes fairly and uniformly tight using a truing meter to measure the tension in each spoke. DT spokes offer high quality replacement spokes in case your spokes cannot be tweaked any longer.

Models

Pricing

While these tools can be purchased separately, most bike truing stand kits are priced between $90 USD and $125 USD.