papaki72

Yesterday after cleaning my road bike (rim brakes), I noticed that after putting on the front wheel and although true, the rim is closer by 2mm to the left fork. Is that a concern? What would be the effects of a front wheel out of dish by that much?

Crankycrank

Yes, it could be the rim is not dished properly, could also be missing or have an extra axle spacer or possibly the dropouts are not squared.

FBinNY 

Need to sort out the chaff.

First, get into the habit of mounting wheels on the ground with the bike (reasonably) vertical. This will allow gravity to consistently seat axles in the dropouts, both front and rear. If you've mounted on a worksrand or otherwise, simply loosen and retighten on the ground.

To check if it's wheel dish, flip the wheel 180 and see if it's now near the other blade. If not, the wheel is OK, but the fork may not be.


Regardless of whether it's wheel or fork decide whether it's actionable. By this I mean that if the bike rides perfectly fine with no tracking issue, doesn't have a high speed wobble or any other noticeable problem, your best option may be to leave bad enough alone.

mpetry912 

can you ride straight with no hands ? that will tell you something.

you might be able to confirm the assymetry by flipping the wheel over

/markp

Iride01 

I don't think it'll matter much to anything you do with the bike as far as riding it. However since you noticed it, you should at least check that it is properly in the fork ends.

I might imagine that riding it no handed might be a infinitesimal more squirrely. And maybe your tire or tires will wear out a very few kilometers sooner. But as I said, I'm only imagining that.

SurferRosa

You then flip it around in the frame to see if it's actually off center on one side (or if the problem lies elsewhere, like with fork alignment). If it's actually not dished correctly, you merely do it properly. I measure dish with two stacks of CD jewel cases, a table, and a metric ruler.

papaki72

I did it! It took me all night, but I did it! I flipped the wheel the other way around and the rim got closer to the other side of the fork. So, dishing it should be. I created a tool from a long wooden piece with a bolt at each end tightened at exactly the same height and with a hole at the center for the butt of a vernier caliper to fit in.
It took a few tries and voila! Now it is dead centered. I did some sort of a mistake at first and all spokes where too tight. I loosened them all by half a turn and all looks good now.
After office hours I will take it out for a quick "look ma, no hands" test.

Camilo

I made one of these:
Later I got a genuine Park dishing tool on the free table at a bike swap. The home made one works just as well. The Park tool is a little easier to store away since it has less "bulk".

papaki72

I have made something similar to this. It is relatively thin and I store it behind my bench in the garage. I just hope I will remember that next time I need it.