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Old 02-15-18, 12:12 AM
  #15  
bcpriess
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Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 289

Bikes: Masi Giramondo, Trek 830 monstercross build, Raleigh Gran Sport, Lemond Tourmalet

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Here's what I did.

1) I loosened all the spokes until about 3 threads were showing. This was to ensure that all the nipples turned freely and I had enough slack for the rim to relax into whatever shape it was in.
2) I was then able to see the bend. It was king of a "j" shaped bend when the wheel was viewed in profile, covering about 120 degrees of the wheel. i.e. two bends in the same direction 120 degrees apart, just as one would assume with the type of side impact I experienced.
3) I blocked up under the inflection point of the bends, and stood on the rim on opposite sides, checking visually and on a flat surface until I felt it was pretty flat. After a dozen or so repeats, this got the rim straight enough to work with.
4) I reattached the wheel to the frame (no truing stand)
5) I numbered every other spoke with a sharpie on the braking surface since they all look the same and I needed reference points.
6) I began retensioning the spokes with full turns the first few turns until the obvious slack was taken up.
7) I began going by half turns at this point, taking care to keep the rim spinning straight.
8) As I was doing this, I flicked the spokes to see if they produced generally similar pitches. Knowing the rim was imperfect, I knew there would be some inconsistency as certain spokes needed more tension than others to compensate.
9) With the front wheel as a guide, I tensioned the spokes while visually checking alignment, until the spokes had a similar pitch to the spokes on the front wheel.
10) Eventually, by focusing more specifically on spokes in a couple locations, I was able to straighten the wheel.
11) After doing this, I checked all the other spokes' tension by feel and approximate pitch, and went about tightening up any spokes that had become relatively loose until all felt and sounded similar in tension.

Took me about two hours. For my first time, I think it went well.
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