A bent or cracked rim on tour might just be the worst nightmare for a cyclist on a tour. Also if you are using rim brakes, rim brakes will slowly wear out the side wall of your rims to the point where they crack. If you have some experience truing wheels you can easily swap out your rim with this trick.
How to replace your rim without re-lacing the spoke
Find a compatible rim: the ideal would be to find the exact same rim. If not, check for size (inner diameter and tire width), amount of spoke holes and valve size (can be drilled bigger if necessary). If you have a bike with rim brakes, make sure the rim is compatible with rim brakes.
This is not a complete list of compatibility, but the most important factors for your old spokes to match your new rim. If you want to do more research Sheldon Brown’s Measurements for Spoke Length Calculations is a good place to start.
To get started, remove the cassette from your old wheel (if you are working on your rear wheel). Take off the tire, tube and rim tape from your old wheel and tape the old and the new rim together. Be sure to line up the valves. Usually the holes on the rim are drilled slightly off centre. This is because every other spoke will be laced to the left end of the hub, and every other to the right. If the pattern of the drilling is not matching, flip the new rim over.
Loosen all the spokes on your old wheel, but don’t take the nipples off.
If the nipples are hard to loosen, you can try heating it slightly with a lighter. If you end up rounding your nipple you can open it from inside the rim with a screwdriver. If all else fails, cut the spoke and replace it. We love our P&K Lie spoke wrench, that handles high tensions without rounding nipples.
Start at the valve by removing one nipple and moving the spoke to the corresponding spoke hole on the new rim. Clean the treads of the spoke and add a very light touch of grease. Fix in place with a new nipple, but don’t tighten yet. Do the same amount of rounds on each nipple, for example three.
If you can: Replace the nipples! Used nipples have been under stress so it is better to do a rebuild with new ones. Make sure you find the same kind of nipples as the original ones.
Move all the spokes one by one to the new rim, preserving the lacing of the wheel.
When all of your spokes are successfully on your new rim, remove the old rim. Now you are only a trueing away from having a new wheel!
Now it is time of the truth
Disclaimer: I am far from an expert since I have only few sets of wheels in my life, but they have been running smoothly with no issues.
This is not intended to be a guide on wheel building or trueing, but instead a quick overview of the process and some tips i have learned during last 12years of bikepacking. If you have never built or trued a wheel before, make sure you do more research before you dismantle your wheel.
The goal is a wheel that spins without any wobble side to side or up and down, and has equally tensioned spokes. On the rear wheel if you have cassette the drive side will have slightly higher tension than the non-drive side.
Depending on how long your new nipples are and how well your spokes are matched to your rim, start by tightening all spokes down so that you can’t see the threads anymore. Make an effort to be precise in tightening all spokes equally as it will make your job easier later. Always start at the valve and work one full rim rotation at a time.
Lay your wheel on the ground and press the rim downwards with a careful but firm pulse to make sure the spokes are sitting properly at the hub and any tension is equalised. Repeat 3-4 times to work your way around the wheel. Flip the wheel over and repeat for the other side. (Make sure you are not damaging the hub in the process.)
If you don’t have a truing stand: mount your wheel on your bicycle making sure that the axel sits correctly in the dropouts on your frame. Turn the bike upside down and use a cut down cable tie as a point of reference.
Spin your wheel and take note of how it is wobbling side to side and up and down compared to the cable tie.
Work one side at a time. Work patiently and slowly: in the beginning by tightening the nipples one round at a time, and soon move down to half- and quarter turns. Start at the valve and always work in the same direction to make sure you are working one full wheel spin at a time.
To limit side to side wobble: tighten 1-5 spokes on one side to pull the rim in that direction.
To limit up and down wobble: tighten a bigger number of adjacent spokes to pull the rim down. You should start to pay attention to the vertical wobble only towards the end of the truing process.
Pay close attention to how the rim is reacting to each of your adjustments, and work accordingly.
Turn the wheel over and repeat on the opposite side. Keep an eye on not pulling the rim towards one side more than the other.
Take the wheel off your bike or trueing stand and even out the tension again by applying firm, quick pressure to the rim with the hub on the ground.
Go back checking the true of the wheel one time valve-to-valve again on each side. This time be more aware to only make small adjustments, like quarter turns on each spoke that needs to be tightened. Repeat until your wheel is true.
After riding a few hundred kilometers, check your wheel again as the spokes might have set in the hub taking the wheel out of true. If you have rim brakes, you can use them as your reference when checking for wobble. If you don’t have you can tie zip tie on your frame pointing towards the side wall of your rim and use this as reference point.
About spoke tension:
I like running my wheels with high spoke tension. When you are tightening your spokes from scratch this also gives you a lot of space for truing as you will be tightening more the longer you go on.
On a non-roadside build you might want to use a tension meter to make sure you end up with fairly even tensions on your spokes. If no tension meter is available: play your spokes like guitar strings. A similar pitch tone equals a similar tension (lower tone = lower tension). If you find yourself wanting to tighten a spoke that is already much tighter than the rest: try tightening the neighbouring spokes. Also check the opposite spokes, they might be very loose and tightening might solve the problem.
Final thoughts
Wheel building is an art, and truing a wheel on the road can be very stressful. I would highly recommend practicing truing a wheel before heading out on tour, because there are chances you will end up doing it on the road. If you can build a set of wheels, even better!
Do you have any road side bike mechanic hacks? Let me know in the comments!
Peyman
