One can cant one's bike over to one side and lean the other way and balance when going straight, thereby putting a strong lateral force on the wheel. Try it - its easy to do. In the same way, this can be done while turning. So it's possible to have lateral forces on wheels, and pretty strong ones. Do people do this in practice? I don't think that much. But it's completely possible to have lateral forces on wheels, even on straightaways.
Too, I think that in some circumstances one could put enough lateral force on a wheel to untrue it. Imagine catching some air and turning the wheel while airborne to compensate. When the turned wheel hit the ground it might put the wheel out of true.
But in this case, engineering, metaphysical and religious arguments are unnecessary. The wheels hit a bump, and there was a crash. The wheels are not true either because of the bump or because of the crash, or both. A Failure Mode Analysis is hardly needed here! True them and get back to riding!
On Edit: I just thought a little bit about how I ride and I think that I usually do ride with the bike (very) slightly canted to left. Dynamical analysis of bicycle stabilty is deucedly difficult (surprisingly so) but I hypothesize that most people ride with a slight tilt for stability sake. If so there's always some lateral force. What do you all think?
Last edited by WizardOfBoz; 09-08-22 at 07:00 AM.