Any kind of impact to your wheel—like hopping off a curb, or hitting a rock or pothole—can knock your rim out of shape. So to keep your bike rolling smoothly and safely, it’s important to maintain straight and warp-free wheels by truing them from time to time.
Truing a bike wheel involves tightening and loosening the spoke nipples to realign warped sections of the rim, and it’s something you can do at home with some practice.
“It’s meticulous and time-consuming, but the actual principle of it is pretty simple,” says Justin McCloud, professional bike mechanic and co-owner of Blackbird Bike Co. in Phoenix, Arizona. McCloud gave us a basic rundown on how to true a bike wheel in your garage or at-home workshop.
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What to Know Before You Get Started
You’ll be able to see if your wheel needs to be trued. “An out-of-true wheel will be wobbling laterally, from non-drive side to drive side,” says McCloud. Lift up your bike, spin a wheel, and take a look at it from the front or rear. If you can see it wobbling more than five millimeters left to right, it’s time for a wheel true. In extreme cases, an untrue wheel’s rim might make contact with rim brake pads, or the tire will rub the seat stays or chainstays.
“For safety, I recommend checking your wheel true before every ride,” says McCloud. “Especially with a front wheel—if it’s bad enough that it hits your brake pads and stops you, then you’re going over the bars.”
Because they’re so much stronger, carbon wheels require truing less frequently than aluminum ones, and when they do, you’ll just see small warps in the shape, so you’ll have to look a bit closer. While aluminum can flex and bend without actually cracking under stress, if you see a big warp in a carbon rim, it’s likely that the rim has actually cracked.
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The Tools You’ll Need
A truing stand holds your wheel in place and uses adjustable guides along the side of the rim to help you better locate problem sections. It also allows you to set the wheel up on a workbench or table for comfortable, eye-level access. But if you’re working on a rim brake bike, you might not even need one: You can keep the wheel on your bike and use your brake pads as a guide (it helps to set your bike up in a repair stand).
You will also need a spoke wrench in the correct size. “Park Tool and Pedro’s make a spoke key that [fits] the most popular widths,” says McCloud, but because nipples can come in all shapes and sizes, it’s best to check with your wheel’s manufacturer to see which size wrench you need. If your wheel has bladed spokes, you’ll need a second tool to hold the spoke in place as you tighten the nipple so the blades stay aligned.
Tools For Truing a Bike Wheel
How to True a Bike Wheel
Take the wheel off your bike and set it up in the truing stand, or clamp your bike into a stand if you’re keeping the wheel on and using your rim brake pads as a guide. Spin the wheel slowly, and begin to tighten the gauge or brakes as it spins until sections of the wheel make contact with the gauge. These warped areas are where spokes need to be tightened. Once you’ve identified the most warped section of the wheel, start there, and work your way to the smaller wobbles, saving all the fine-tuning for last.
Next, identify the nipple that needs to be tightened to pull the rim back towards the center. If you have a section of rim that’s warped out to the right, locate the nearest nipple attached to the left side of the hub (opposite of whichever brake pad or gauge lever it’s touching), and tighten that to pull it back into place—a half turn should do the trick. In order to avoid over-tensioning the rim, McCloud recommends loosening the spokes on either side of the one you tightened, by about a half-turn.
“Spokes do need to have a little bit of wiggle,”says McCloud. “That’s what allows the wheel to flex without everything just breaking.” In order to get a sense of the amount of wiggle you want, he recommends squeezing a few pairs of spokes together in a non-warped area of the wheel to get a feel for how tight they are, and try to match that tension in the spokes you’re tightening.
One thing that’s important to note: All external nipples turn counterclockwise to tighten, opposite of the conventional “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey” wisdom. (If they are hidden inside the rim where you have to take off the tire to get to them, they tighten the normal way.)
If you’re doing this for the first time, we have good news: It’s not something you can do permanent damage to your wheel by messing up. “The biggest mistake you can make is to overtension a spoke to the point where you break it or strip the threading on the spoke or nipple,” says McCloud. If you do that, you’ll need to replace the spoke, but the wheel will still be able to straighten out.
If you start, and you feel really unsure, you can always take it over to your local shop for proper guidance or repair.
So once you’ve eradicated all visible wobbles—voilà!—you’re all set. Throw the wheel back on your bike, and enjoy the smooth, safe ride.
Riley is a writer and outdoor adventure guide currently based in Tucson, Arizona where she leads mountain bike rides, rock climbing, and hiking trips. In her spare time, she writes stories and reviews outdoor and fitness gear. Find her writing in publications including Outside, Lonely Planet, SHAPE, Bicycling, Runner’s World, and others. When she’s not playing in the mountains, she’s probably laying down somewhere or eating (or both).
