stiffi

Hello,

I had a blow out yesterday and I replaced the tube and tire. After putting the wheel back on, I noticed the entire wheel is sitting a bit off in the fork. It's too far to the right while sitting on the bike.

Does anybody have any idea what might be wrong?

I should mention I did mess with the stem nut trying to adjust the handlebars.

thanks for the help.

roadfix

Is the wheel misaligned within the fork or is the fork misaligned with the handlebar? (two separate issues)

ianjk

Just loosen up your quick release or axle nuts, adjust and tighten back up.

stiffi

It appears to be both! When I look down upon the wheel from seated position, it's shifted to the right. Also, it's too close to the right brake pad, and is pushing on it.

markjenn

I assume you've confirmed that the wheel is properly seated in the dropouts.

I suspect you've both bent the wheel and your handlebars have twisted with respect to the fork. The wheel should be trued and the handlebars re-aligned. The second can often be done simply by holding the front wheel between your legs while you give the bars a good twist, but it is better to loosen your stem first and re-tighten after adjustment. For quill stems, it's just a matter of loosening the expander bolt and retightening after adjustment, but for a clamp-type stem on a threadless fork, you have to loosen the clamp screws, adjust, preload the top bolt to remove the play from the bearings, and re-tighten the clamp screws.

- Mark

stiffi

Just to follow up. The entire wheel is shifted to the right. If I look at the bike from the front, the tire is straight up and down, but shifted 1 inch to the left of the handlebars.

If it were out of true, wouldn't just part of it, be shifted?

Al1943

Always have the wheel on the ground with the full weight of the bicycle on the axle before tightening the quick-release or axle nuts.
Confirm that the rim is equal distant from both fork legs.
Standing over the bike frame turn the wheel so that the tire and rim are centered under the frame's down tube.
With the wheel centered on the frame if the handlebar and stem are not centered over the wheel you need to rotate the handlebar relative to the wheel. If the fork and stem are of the threaded type you can probably just use a bit of force to re-align the stem. If the fork and stem are threadless you will need to loosen the stem pinch bolts slightly, re-set the stem compression cap pre-load, and re-torque the stem pinch bolts. Instructions can be found at https://www.parktool.com.

Al

ianjk

Can you take a picture and upload it?

GlassWolf

out of dish sounds more accurate than out of true.
fwiw

markjenn

I don't think a wheel can be out of dish by an inch without breaking things. We need a picture. If you're off by an inch, something is seriously bent or broken. This is beginning to sound like a bent fork.

- Mark

thebikeguy

How does the bike ride no-hands?The forks might be bent.Also sounds like your handlebars are a bit crooked.That's an easy adjustment to remedy.
You can try loosing the nut on the wheel(opposite the side thats rubbing the brake).Eyeball the wheel straight and tighten it back up.

stiffi

How do I post a picture?

stiffi

Here's a link to a blog, that shows the same situation I have. I'll up load my own pic once I figure out how.

So, if my bike looks like this, looks like a bent fork huh?

GlassWolf

carbon fiber doesn't bend.

stiffi

Okay,

Here's some actual pics, one from above one from in front. The wheel, seems to spin true in the forks.

thebikeguy

??? I don't think he mentiones they were CF.
OP are the forks CF??

Al1943

From the second picture it appears that the stem is threaded and just needs to be "tweaked" back into position. See my previous post.

Al

markjenn

Sorry, but these pictures are just too dark and distant to tell much of anything.

Your bars appear definitely "tweaked" (easily fixed as others have said), but I would guess you've either got a bent wheel or bent fork also. How the wheels sits in the fork - whether offset laterally or tilted with respect to fork plane - is what you need to determine if it is fork, wheel, or both. Reversing the wheel in the fork will tell you a lot - if nothing changes, then it's the fork, but if the error shifts to the other side, that indicates wheel.

I'd bet your LBS could diagnose it in a matter of seconds.

- Mark

Wordbiker

Check your quick release spring. If you removed it when you did the flat repair, it may have been put on backwards, causing it to wrap around the axle and skew the wheel. The small end of the spring goes in toward the axle.

GlassWolf

the picture of the fork he used for reference, the GIRVIN one, is carbon.
you can see the weave plain as day.
I was referring to that image.

stiffi

Okay, so I reversed the wheel. It actually got much worse. Tire was shifted even further to the right. So, it must be a bent fork, huh?

GlassWolf

sounds like it

thebikeguy

If the fork was bent it wouldn't have changed when you flipped the wheel.
It's not the axle.It would have been closer to the left fork(the exact opposite),not closer to the right after reversing it.
Are you sure the axle is seating properly in the fork drop outs?
BTW the wheel in the example picure(with the CF GIRVIN forks) is definately crooked in the forks.You can see that it is visually closer to the right fork.Is yours crooked in the forks like that?Physically measure it with a ruler.

raleighrider75

Wordbiker wrote-thebikeguy wrote-+1 on both of those replies.There's something wonky going on there.

stiffi

Because I know you were all dying to know... I put my wheel on another bike, and it was straight as an arrrow. So, it would appear as most of you suggested, the fork of my original bike was bent.

Thanks for all your help.