Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Spoke Wrench

I just came back from Snider's Cyclry, I had to get a spoke wrench for my bike.  I was going to wait until I got my check then have them "true" the wheel but I wasn't sure how expensive it would be.  The guy at Snider's told me it would only cost $17 but probably more depending on how bad it was and it's pretty bad lol.

He asked if I've ever "trued" a bike before and I said no but I've been doing a lot of research on how to do it with watching YouTube videos and reading tutorials and stuff because I've read if you don't do it right you can screw it up and you'll have to buy a new wheel.  He said yeah and he showed me how to do it which was nice.

He said that a truing stand would cost like $75 or so which I don't have that kind of money but he told me that you can put the wheel in your front fork where the front wheel goes and put a zip tie on the fork about where the top of the wheel is as a guide so when you are moving the wheel near that zip tie you will be able to see if it needs to go in which direction.

I'm not quite sure I remember everything he told me but I'm going to do my best.  I just want to save the $17 or so so I can buy my seat next in 2 weeks.

Well, I'm off to go try to "true" my back wheel in the front fork hehe.  Wish me luck.  And as always I will edit this post when I'm finished with a YAY I did it or oh crap I screwed it up and now I can't ride my bike until I can get a new wheel lol.

Edit: I am happy to say that it worked out.  I didn't totally 100% true my back wheel but it doesn't wobble anymore.  I tried doing what he said by putting the back wheel on the front fork but it's not the right size because of the freewheel (the thing that the chain goes on) made it too big.  So what I did was I put the zip tie on the fork for the front wheel and did a little practice test on the front wheel.  That worked out perfectly because the front wheel needed to be trued a little too.  So then I put another zip tie on the back wheel and I trued that as best as I could and then went out on a test ride and perfection.  Well, 95% perfection lol.  I didn't want to mess with it too much and end up screwing it up.  But it was much easier than I thought because of that zip tie.