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Is a "tacoed wheel" a wheel that is folded in two....

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Old 01-19-19, 11:50 PM
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JonBailey
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Is a "tacoed wheel" a wheel that is folded in two....

like an Ortega taco shell?

What are the major causes of tacoed wheels?

1. hitting curbs fast?
2. running into telephone poles?
3. car accidents?
4. being overweight?
5. other?

I prefer my wheels to be straight and round like tostada shells.
When I get cold in the winter, I like to burrito up (wrap up like a mummy) under the covers while embracing an attractive partner.
Just make sure you don't get "sandwiched" between two large vehicles while riding in the streets.

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Old 01-20-19, 12:04 AM
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Aka Pringled.

crisps in a can.. If you don't have Tacos, there..

How is it done?
Un attended to, not all spokes equally balanced.. tension... poorly built wheel?

dropping a wheel in the trolley track slot..








.....

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Old 01-20-19, 12:17 AM
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Originally Posted by JonBailey
like an Ortega taco shell?

What are the major causes of tacoed wheels?

1. hitting curbs fast?
2. running into telephone poles?
3. car accidents?
4. being overweight?
5. other?

I prefer my wheels to be straight and round like tostada shells.
When I get cold in the winter, I like to burrito up (wrap up like a mummy) under the covers while embracing an attractive partner.
Just make sure you don't get "sandwiched" between two large vehicles while riding in the streets.
Seldom do wheels fold in half when “tacoed”. A better description would be a Pringles. The rim usually bent in two places 180° from each other like, well, a Pringles.

The causes can be many. Least likely (and, frankly, a bit insulting) is being overweight. You can easily “taco” a wheel by letting it fall over in a wheel trapping bicycle rack. I always park my bike in that kind of rack with the rear wheel only because a bike can fall over and the weight of the bike can bend the rim. Impacts can cause them but it is dependent on the angle of the impact. A straight up impact probably isn’t going to taco a wheel. A side glance could.

And if you are running into telephone poles, you have other problems you neeed to address.

Having loose spokes can cause a rim to taco, especially on hard corners. A wheel build to asymmetrical spokes...spoke heads pointing in the same direction instead of being a mirror image...is more prone to bending.
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Old 01-20-19, 12:54 AM
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Originally Posted by fietsbob
Un attended to, not all spokes equally balanced.. tension...

dropping a wheel in the trolley track slot..
In other words, the wheel is warped like an LP record that sat in the hot sun all day long.

Shaped like the brim of a cowboy hat??
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Old 01-20-19, 01:05 AM
  #5  
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In August I was riding at night and hit a boulder that must have been chucked out into the road, or fallen off a truck. It sent me into the curb really hard. I went down, and as I hit I remember thinking how hard the impact was; it was harder than anything I had ever felt before. I had an abrasion on my chest where I landed on the stem. Both elbows and knees were badly gashed up. My left elbow had a bone chip.

The front wheel was bent such that at 0 deg and 180 deg it would rub the left brake caliper. At 90 and 270 it would rub the right brake caliper. The tire was torn open. My left shifter's little inner shift tab had a half inch snapped off it. I released the brake caliper (as if to repair a flat) and rode home on that wobbly wheel with a flat (irreparable) tire, seven miles. Well, at first I started walking but then did the math and realized I'd take more than two hours to walk home, and would wear out the shoes along the way. It got a little skittish around corners, but I made it. My gloves had blood in them from running down my elbows.

That's the closest I've come to "tacoing" a wheel. None of the spokes broke, which was pretty surprising. And in the end it was a good excuse to upgrade to a nicer wheel set. I was riding within a week, though it took a couple weeks before I could get away with not wearing gauze under my clothes.

So yes to #1 : hitting a curb at about 17 mph was enough to do it, though I suspect that it was partially the force of me landing on it, too.

I really doubt that being overweight could do it unless there was some other event to spark the tinder. Mostly it probably takes some good side force. At any rate, it's not something to worry about while riding down the road under normal conditions.
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Old 01-20-19, 07:56 AM
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
You can easily “taco” a wheel by letting it fall over in a wheel trapping bicycle rack. I always park my bike in that kind of rack with the rear wheel only because a bike can fall over and the weight of the bike can bend the rim.
Learned that lesson years ago and had to ride 20 miles back to the car with a brake unhooked
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Old 01-20-19, 08:45 AM
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Originally Posted by JonBailey
In other words, the wheel is warped like an LP record that sat in the hot sun all day long.

Shaped like the brim of a cowboy hat??
Tacoed front wheel on my cheap commuter, after hitting the side of a pickup truck that turned in front of me.
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Old 01-20-19, 11:44 AM
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Buy a new wheel .... collisions are always effective in damaging wheels and more...
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Old 01-20-19, 12:13 PM
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It means you dropped the chalupa
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Old 01-20-19, 12:29 PM
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5. Twenty four paired spokes.
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Old 01-20-19, 12:31 PM
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Taking a right-hand corner @ ~20mph. I heard a loud blam, and I was on the ground. Either the tube blew and that took out the wheel, or the wheel folded and the tube/tire were just collateral damage.

But hey, I landed on the non driveside. So silver lining.
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Old 01-20-19, 03:04 PM
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I have had wheels taco when brand new. It happens if you overtension the spokes.

I blame mechanical incompetence. 'Scuse me while I go slap myself silly.
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Old 01-20-19, 03:37 PM
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A spoked bicycle wheel has two stable configurations - the nice round true shape we all love and that wavy form in the pictures above, much like a potato chip; "tacoed". Taco'd wheels can often be saved by backing off the spoke tension until the rim pops back to the original shape, then re-tightened and trued like a new wheel build. If this if the case, the second try will be as good as if the tacoing never happened.

Ben
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Old 01-20-19, 06:06 PM
  #14  
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I was in a bike/car wreck that tacoed both wheels - handbuilt wheels from excel sports with power tap hubs. Got them rebuilt.
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Old 01-20-19, 06:16 PM
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My wife and I had just come to a stop, I was off my bike, and she lost her balance as she brought her leg over her bike to dismount. Her bike fell against mine and my rear wheel tacoed. Boom. That quick and easy.
With advice from members of this forum, I was able to repair it.
I don't think the spokes were too tight. It's an early 80's Motobecane Grand Record that sat in a basement for years, it didn't have enough miles on it to ever have been repaired. But, who knows?
Here's a link to the thread about it: https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...epairable.html
I've ridden it maybe 200 miles since then. (Including a crash that took out my left rotator cuff.) Maybe I've been lucky; it's been fine. From what I've read here, it could've folded up again.
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Old 01-20-19, 08:31 PM
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Originally Posted by JonBailey
like an Ortega taco shell?

What are the major causes of tacoed wheels?

1. hitting curbs fast?
2. running into telephone poles?
3. car accidents?
4. being overweight?
5. other?

I prefer my wheels to be straight and round like tostada shells.
When I get cold in the winter, I like to burrito up (wrap up like a mummy) under the covers while embracing an attractive partner.
Just make sure you don't get "sandwiched" between two large vehicles while riding in the streets.
5. Other ..... A bonehead in a race crashes right in front of you, and you crash into him, resulting in a tacoed wheel.
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Old 01-20-19, 09:24 PM
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Originally Posted by JonBailey
In other words, the wheel is warped like an LP record that sat in the hot sun all day long.

Shaped like the brim of a cowboy hat??
Yes but “warped like an LP that sat in the hot sun all day long” or “shaped like the brim of a cowboy hat” or ”shaped like a formed potato chip like a Pringles” just doesn’t have the punch of “tacoed”.
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Old 01-20-19, 09:33 PM
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Originally Posted by Jeff Wills
I have had wheels taco when brand new. It happens if you overtension the spokes.

I blame mechanical incompetence. 'Scuse me while I go slap myself silly.
I suspect that your wheel was asymmetrical. If the spoke heads on both sides of the hub opposite of each other face in th same direction, this can make the wheel more unstable and prone to tacoing. Think of it this way, the forces spokes tend to face in the same direction so that the rim warps. If the spokes are symmetrical, the forces cancel out and the wheel stays flat

Originally Posted by 79pmooney
A spoked bicycle wheel has two stable configurations - the nice round true shape we all love and that wavy form in the pictures above, much like a potato chip; "tacoed". Taco'd wheels can often be saved by backing off the spoke tension until the rim pops back to the original shape, then re-tightened and trued like a new wheel build. If this if the case, the second try will be as good as if the tacoing never happened.

Ben
I don’t argree. You might be able to bring back an asymmetrical wheel but it would be doubt full. Once bent, however, a wheel tends to stay bent. It’s really tough to get it straight again. You have to really overtension some spokes and leave others undertensioned.
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Old 01-21-19, 10:53 AM
  #19  
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I had one taco when a dog ran in front of me while going slow. I turned the wheel too far and it skidded sideways.
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Old 01-21-19, 11:43 AM
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Originally Posted by cyccommute
Yes but “warped like an LP that sat in the hot sun all day long” or “shaped like the brim of a cowboy hat” or ”shaped like a formed potato chip like a Pringles” just doesn’t have the punch of “tacoed”.
"Pringled" seemed to be the buzzword of choice BITD, in the heyday of the eponymous snack. I suppose "tacoed" is preferred over the march of time. I had a front wheel tacoed when I was T-boned* by a Crown Vic in 2000. I managed to get it at least back "in the ball park", but it sat in the basement for want of an assignment, until this year. Now it, and its companion from the same bike, are the "spare set", shod with the studded tires, for my wife's winter commuter. So far so good.



*How many food-metaphoric buzzwords can one squeeze into a post?
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Old 01-21-19, 12:23 PM
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Originally Posted by madpogue
"Pringled" seemed to be the buzzword of choice BITD, in the heyday of the eponymous snack. I suppose "tacoed" is preferred over the march of time. I had a front wheel tacoed when I was T-boned* by a Crown Vic in 2000. I managed to get it at least back "in the ball park", but it sat in the basement for want of an assignment, until this year. Now it, and its companion from the same bike, are the "spare set", shod with the studded tires, for my wife's winter commuter. So far so good.



*How many food-metaphoric buzzwords can one squeeze into a post?
I don’t know how far back you go in BITD but I go back about 40 years and the term used has always be “to taco” a rim. A few people have tried “potato chip” but I don’t recall anyone calling a bent wheel a “Pringle”.
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Old 01-21-19, 08:39 PM
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Originally Posted by davidad
I had one taco when a dog ran in front of me while going slow. I turned the wheel too far and it skidded sideways.
It sounds like the dog did not end up being canine carnitas. That's good.
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Old 01-21-19, 10:54 PM
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Originally Posted by DrIsotope


Taking a right-hand corner @ ~20mph. I heard a loud blam, and I was on the ground. Either the tube blew and that took out the wheel, or the wheel folded and the tube/tire were just collateral damage.

But hey, I landed on the non driveside. So silver lining.
The way it sounds like you ride, you really really should consider going tubeless.
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Old 01-24-19, 12:51 AM
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A bus tacoed a wheel of mine ... from the inside.

Inside the bus. One of those folding buses. And I was sitting in the folding part. The wheel i was holding got stuck during a turn.

Bizarre occurrence, and shocking at the time. But not a big deal. Bought another Sun rim and built it back up. Fortunately, it wasn't a vintage, irreplaceable rim.
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Old 01-24-19, 02:52 AM
  #25  
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Originally Posted by WizardOfBoz
It sounds like the dog did not end up being canine carnitas. That's good.
I've seen that in the TdF before. Buy the dog a TV.
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