gbot

Bought a wheelset from a reputable online wheelbuilder. Wheels showed up, looked great, rode great for about 200 miles, then the rear wheel went way out of true. OK, no problem, went to my LBS, had them true it. Trust my mechanic as he's experienced and good at what he does.

Another 50 miles and it's out of true again. Went back to the LBS and they retensioned the spokes. Not 2 rides and it's WAY out of true AGAIN!

How do I resolve this? Is it likely something wrong with the rim?

Shimagnolo

Did the LBS mech actually adjust *all* the spoke tensions to be as even as possible, or did he just crank some nipples to get the rim true?
I got into doing my own wheel work when I realized the "top mechanic" at my LBS didn't have a clue how to work on a wheel.

roby

Had the same issue with a set of Mavic Aksium Race. The Mavic rep told my LBS I was too heavy for the wheels, even tho I'd start hearing tweaking noises not a week after a true. Switched to a set of Shimano RS80's, haven't touch them since I bought them. The same was true for the RS10's, I broke a single spoke in 2 years(over 20,000km) and other than replacing the spoke, never needed a true. Did I mention I weighed 225 on the RS10's and 215 at the beginning of this year on the RS80's(and end of last summer too). I'm now still hammering them on my daily commutes at 190lbs.

Anyways, all that to say there was no fixing those Mavic's for me, i switched to better wheels.

gbot

I believe he did retension the spokes as that's specifically what I asked to be done. This mechanic has built a different wheel for me in the past that's holding up well.

canam73

I'm assuming you are not to heavy for the wheels or bashing potholes.

And with that, as Shimagolo mentioned if the lbs spent 5 minutes on it and just brought it back to 'true', whatever the problem was won't be fixed. Either the rim was warped to start with, the wheel wasn't stressed relieved or the wheel was not brought to even and proper tension when building.

gbot

OK, so given that one of these 3 things is likely the cause - what's the remedy?

Clem von Jones

Unless you're wealthy it might be impossible to get perfectly tuned wheels - it's extremely time intensive - a person can spend hours on a single wheel. It isn't hard to learn though, so maybe you could do it.

Brian Ratliff

What's "WAY" out of true?

How many spokes?

What kind of rims?

Drew Eckhardt 

Where a shop has more than one wheel builder you can't count on all them to get it right, especially the hypothetical new employee on his first and last week on the job.

While I don't find wheel building more difficult than adjusting front derailleurs (it does take much longer though), it's something you need to learn which many mechanics neglect (perhaps because the hourly rate customers will accept is not competitive with what they and the shop can net for other tasks, perhaps because it's less expensive to order a wheel from QBP than to build one which makes demand low). Competence in other areas of bicycle mechanics _DOES NOT_ imply any sort of wheel building skills.

In decreasing order of probability:

1. It has too little tension on average, perhaps because the builder neglected to properly lubricate spoke threads and nipple sockets and it felt tight before he had enough tension. Spokes that are too short can run out of threads and lead to this problem too.

2. It has too little tension in some places because the builder didn't start tensioning with the same thread engagement and did not spend enough time balancing tension between adjacent spokes in the same side.

Spokes with thicker center sections (ex: 14g straight gauge vs 14/15 butted or 14/15 butted instead of 14/17 rear non-drive side) will exacerbate the situation because they loose more tension with the same rim deflection as they pass the bottom of the wheel.

3. There's a bend in the rim that means there's too little tension in some spokes when the wheel is true.

4. The shop used 14 gauge nipples with 15 gauge spoke threads

Buy a Park TM-1 tension meter for $50 and change. Put a drop of oil in each socket when it's at the top of the wheel and each nipple when it's at the bottom. Tape flags on the two spokes after the valve stem or Sharpie dots on all of them are a good idea so you can see what sort of windup you're getting in each wheel side and can compensate. Increase tension so that it averages 110kgf on the drive side and is as uniform as you can make it without unacceptable trueness (horizontal wobbles matter a lot more (they affect brake clearance) than radial (your tires flex and render small defects not noticeable)). I add non-drive side tension on alternate revolutions in the truing stand to keep the wheel mostly centered. Make tension uniform on the non-drive side with whatever average value it takes to correctly dish the wheel. Stress-relieve (squeeze near parallel pairs of spokes on the same side of the wheel towards each other _hard_ or twist them around each other at the outer crossing using something softer than the spokes like an old left crank arm, plastic screw driver handle, or (my favorite) a brass drift).

If the wheel was built using a shallow section box rim like an Open Pro and traditional (32, 36, maybe 28) spoke count you can achieve the correct tension with the Jobst Brandt method alternately adding tension and stress relieving until the wheel goes out of true in waves at which point you back off tension half a turn on the drive side, true, dish, and be happy. The Park meter is faster and more pleasant especially if you're squeezing with your hands (gloves help some).

Do the same for the front wheel. While a front wheel that's soft is less likely to go out of true than a rear wheel (the non-drive side spokes can have as little as 40% of the tension in the drive side with the very low tension allowing the nipples to unscrew as those spokes pass the bottom and their tension drops farther) it can still collapse easier with insufficient tension when a bump unloads the bottom spokes, they go slack, the rim moves off-center, and the rim flexes back while off center. That's what happened with the front wheel which went with the under-tensioned rear wheel that didn't stay true for me from a formerly reputable shop. I started building my own wheels after that.

This works to keep wheels true until you hit a big bump and bend a rim even when you're being somewhat silly (215 pounds of fat rider + 15 pounds of commuting luggage on a Mavic Reflex or Open Pro clincher) although the inappropriate equipment choice makes bent rims and replacement a lot more likely.

If the rim is bent you'll end up with an area that has radical tension variations (spokes twice the tension of others). You can choose to straighten it or just replace it.

rdtompki

Explain. It may be more exacting to build a wheel that is right on the edge of suitability, but it seems the vast majority of hand built wheels hold up just fine barring potholes, etc.

howeeee

I think you need new set of wheels,,by better ones,,I am thinking the rim was bent,,when they laced it up,,so it straightens up , but as soon as you ride it goes back. I dont know where the wheels were made, but I have a rule in life anything that saftey is involved make sure nothing is made in china, though I know tires are very hard to find not made in China. You will never see me riding on a Chinese wheel.

Clem von Jones

When you took it to the bike shop they probably just trued the wheels but they didn't loosen all the spokes and retention them all again. The problem now is the rim is likely bent to the point that even retensioning the entire wheel won't cure the problem, but it might if you could spend a lot of time with it, unfortunately there's no way a shop could do this without charging you for several hours of labor, and even after all that it might only prove the rim is bent beyond repair. Learning to do it yourself is frustrating but also rewarding, eventually. Building a new wheel with straight rims and new unstretched spokes is less time intensive than trying to straighten a damaged wheel.

There was a thread here recently about stiff rims with fewer spokes vs. flexible rims with high spoke count and the consensus seems to be the latter more traditional wheels are more comfortable and stronger, but now people who sell the former will take contention with my statement.

Jfitalia

why havent you contacted the builder? There is always the chance the wheel was bad from the get go. Contact them and see what they recommend

Drew Eckhardt 

Very unlikely. It would take heroic measures to achieve enough spoke tension to exceed the rim's elastic limit (Ex: you have a very rigid truing stand and temporarily bend the rim with a hydraulic ram pushing up so the spoke being adjusted has enough slack that you can turn the nipple on the spoke instead of just winding it up). Riding on the wheel doesn't change things since tension in the bottom spokes drops and the increases are negligible in the other spokes.

Fixing the last poorly built wheel I encountered took more time than if I'd built it from scratch.

canam73

What is the wheel or hubs/spokes/nipples/rim? Number of spokes and lacing?

The Smokester

There is not much specific information from the OP to go on. However, assuming a conventional build, it could be that:
Spokes were tensioned too loosely.
Spokes were over-tensioned by a lot.
Spokes were wound up during build-up and not stress relieved.
The rim could be cheap and naturally out-of-round and hence hard to bring into roundness without a lot of uneven spoke tension.
The spokes could be pulling through the rim.
You wacked the rim and bent it while riding

JoelS

I had that happen to a wheel once. Turned out the spokeprep didn't take very well. The wheel was completely disassembled, spoke threads cleaned and re-prepped, and the wheel rebuilt. It's been fine.

ls01

have it retrued and tensioned, then add spoke freeze or blue locktight. spoke freeze is best.

Drew Eckhardt 

Skip those. Sticky compounds are completely unnecessary when a wheel is at sufficient tension, will make it harder to get to an appropriate tension which makes wheel collapse less likely, and will only make things worse when you replace the rim or if you ever need to make a road side adjustment to accommodate a bent rim.

A wheel builder who relies on such substances to keep his wheels straight is not competent and should be avoided.

There are a few exceptions (super light tubeless rims that loose half their tension with a tire installed and don't tolerate high tension) although you're better off skipping the defective equipment entirely rather than crutching around them since such wheels are more likely to collapse. You could also use it on the loose spokes which go with a bent rim; although the tighter spokes needed to make the wheel straight have enough tension to cause stress cracks so that's not a long term solution. Locking nipples and spoke prep should be fine for machine built wheels - while they'll still have too little tension at least they'll stay straight for heavier riders.

The proper approach is lubrication of both threads and nipple sockets - I like anti-seize applied using an acid brush with half the bristles chopped off. My wheels don't go out of true unless their rims get bent with a road obstacle or crash, even at 215 pounds + 15 pounds of luggage (although that was enough to bend a 13-14 year old Reflex Clincher front which was lighter than the Open Pro which followed). The nipples still turn freely over a decade later and are reusable for rim replacement even when made of alloy.

c23

Just yesterday I heard a dreaded ping from my cheap walmart quality wheels. It is in my truing stand right now with a perfectly even 10 pounds of pressure on every spoke. I loosened all the spokes until they were slack and now 10 pounds is the starting point. Its a front wheel, so I do all the spokes at once at half a turn. Then a quick random sample with tension gauge. Once the random samples are about 30 pounds, I use tension gauge to make sure they are all exactly 30 pounds. Then another speedy half or quarter turn, sampling tension and with every full rotation I destress the spokes. Once I get tension close, I go much slower a few pounds at a time and checking every spoke for perfectly even tension. Once it is fully up to tension perfectly I true it as evenly as possible with fraction turns sometimes loosening if it means to have average tension closer. I have been meaning to never trust a wheel I didnt true myself, especially really cheap wheels. I am still learning but my current method for the front has worked good on two other wheels.

https://wheelfanatyk.blogspot.com/200...uild-rear.html
I do this exactly for the rear wheel.

Drew Eckhardt 

I got curious about Jobst Brandt (author of _The Bicycle Wheel_, mechanical engineer, and rider of 300,000 mile old spokes) had to say about Spokeprep and did a web search

https://yarchive.net/bike/spoke_lube.html

Shimagnolo

I just use oil to lube the spoke threads and the holes in the rim where the shoulder of the nipple makes contact.
I've never had spokes loosen.

rogerstg

That is dangerously low tension, considering the generically OK tension of 100 kgf is ~220 pounds.

Thirstyman

This is a very good and comprehensive post. Nice job!