Damaging a front wheel

  • Home
  • Damaging a front wheel
18 replies [Last post]
Anonymous's picture
Anonymous

"Hey guys,
My beautiful, perfect Litespeed Firenze got into an accident (not the bike's fault) and my front wheel got kind of messed up.

There are 3 things wrong with it:
1) It is unbalanced laterally,
2) A spoke is slightly bent towards the middle,
3) The wheel has a small ""hop"" in it.

I took it to Sid's where I bought the bike and spoke to a manager who seemed to sound pretty knowledgeable. I told him I needed this bike to be fixed because I would be riding to Bear Mountain and doing the Montauk Century in the near future.

His answer:
That the spoke is not bent badly enough to need to be replaced (since it was not damaged near the ends), and that the 'hop' is irrepairable because the rim is bent and that cannot be fixed. They aligned the wheel and he said it should be fine to ride on.

So, yeah the spoke is only slightly bent and the hop is small, but still this is not the perfect condition I am used to. I am a rather new rider and this is my first accident with the bike. Can a hop really not be fixed??? Is a slightly bent spoke really no big deal? Am I doomed to an imperfect wheel unless I buy a new one? And will this be not a problem to ride Bear on and my upcoming Century ride?

Thanks to anyone who can help!
-Richard

"

Anonymous's picture
Steve (not verified)

A hop in a wheel can be unfixable.

Anonymous's picture
<a href="http://www.OhReallyOreilly.com">Peter O'Reilly</a> (not verified)
bad bike shop advice

"Naturally, it's hard to diagnose a hop just reading text. It could be a truly damaged rim or just a wheel that is radially untrue (due to uneven spoke tension). The latter is definitely repairable.

Regarding the bent spoke comments, I'd be a bit leary about the bike shop's comments. I venture to say that such individual is either ignorant or aloof or both.

A bent spoke should be replaced, period. The cost of the replacement spoke is nominal. There is significant labor cost (~$20-$40) to retrue or better yet rebuild the wheel.
[retrue/rebuild loosely defined here]

Retrue here meaning just removing and retensioning the spoke. It gets you out the shop door, but is not best in the long term. In terms of shop labor time, this is most expedient. 99% of shops will do this method unless you specify otherwise.

What I mean by rebuild is to loosen all the other spokes in the wheel, replace the damaged spoke and then bring all of the spokes up to the same uniform tension. Essentially it is a rebuild short of lacing up all the spokes to the rim. The wheel will also be stress relieved during this process. This type of repair work is best and the wheel will be as good as new, assuming it was properly built the first time around.

Doing the ""rebuild"" method, you will then discover if the rim is really bent or not. Moral of the story, to really know for sure that your wheel is repairable, it will cost you about $40."

Anonymous's picture
josh (not verified)
take it elsewhere

Have you heard of second opinion? Bicycle Habitat is a good place to get a backup diagnosis. But it sounds like, if you were in an accident or crash, the rim might be bent. (Hitting a pothole I'd think otherwise.) And that doesnt mean you need to get a whole new wheel, either. Just a rim.

Anonymous's picture
Richard P. (not verified)
try a fourth opinion...

Josh,
that's what this thread's purpose was. I took the bike to two bike shops prior to Sid's and neither were helpful. First one only balanced the wheel laterally and didn't fix either the spoke or notice the 'hop', the second shop didn't touch the wheel (after two days of not knowing) because they didn't have the correct tool for my FSA RD-80s. Suffice it to say, I'm not happy so far with the service of bike shops and before I visit a fourth, I thought I'd see if I could get some help from some fellow NYCC members who may have more experience with this than I.

And as a result, Peter, thank you for the descriptive explanation regarding 'wheel rebuilding'. With that information I will try again at a bike shop, and this time be able to explain exactly what I need/want done to the wheel (and I thought they should be the experts, not a first year cyclist!).

Anonymous's picture
Evan Marks (not verified)
Go to Conrad's

Yeh is an expert, repeat, expert wheelbuilder. Expensive but worth it.

Anonymous's picture
An anonymous cow! (Christian Edstrom) (not verified)

Honestly, why even bother with the idea that the vertical hop can be trued out on this wheel? I can diagnose this one from the internet... This isn't a 32h box-section rim. The FSA RD-80 is a 20 spoke wheel with a 27mm deep-section aluminum rim. If you've got a hop in that deep section a rim, and only 20 spokes to try and fix it, you might as well, well, do nothing.

Your options are to live with it, get a new rim laced into the hub, or to get a new front wheel. Depending on the rim price, a new wheel might be cheaper. The rebuild will be about $40 plus the cost of the rim.

(Edit: I think the boys at Sid's were right too fwiw. Sure, they could have charged him $0.85 for a new spoke and $20 for the re-true, but let's face it, the wheel would still have a hop. So then he's out $21 and the wheel still hops. Happy customer then?)

Sorry, chief!
- Christian

Anonymous's picture
Richard P. (not verified)

Well thanks Christian, i'm thinking this might be the case as well. I took the bike to Conrad's right before close and they will look at the wheel and get back to me but they weren't too confident on if it could be fixed (I had a few other minor things needed as well). Let's just say i'm hoping that Peter is right. This is just bad timing cause i'm doing my sig graduation ride next week followed by Montauk Century the next day. Anyways, I don't know what the rim price would be, but they will call me if that is a solution. How much would just a front wheel cost me? I found the RD-80 wheelset can be had for $180 online. I'm guessing we're talking $100-$120 for a front wheel then. Anyways, thanks everyone for your help. We'll see what happens.

-Richard

Anonymous's picture
An anonymous cow! (Christian Edstrom) (not verified)

If your wheel is so hoppy as to be unrideable, email me off message board, and I'll lend you a wheel for the ride.

My email address is [email protected] if you substitute my first name for anonymous and my last name for cow.

- Christian

Anonymous's picture
Evan Marks (not verified)
Truing?

Who said anything about truing?

Get a new rim and have Yeh rebuild it.

Anonymous's picture
Richard P. (not verified)

Evan, I got it at Conrad's right now, so I'm guessing Yeh would be the one to look at it? Either way, when they call me I'll make sure to ask if Yeh took a look at it. thanks for the suggestion.

Christian, thanks so much for the offer. I rode the bike to the shop, and it seemed to be ok to ride. To be honest I don't think it is too hoppy, at least it is hard to tell when riding, but again I'm not too confident I know a big hop from a small hop given my lack of experience wit it. I'll definitely ask this when I pick up the bike, based on the outcome. Much appreciated! We'll see...

Anonymous's picture
<a href="http://www.OhReallyOreilly.com">Peter O'Reilly</a> (not verified)
more comments

"First, the original poster did not mention which model the wheel is until after I posted. Not that it matters anyway.

The reverse could be argued, because it is a deep-section rim, it is much less likely to be damaged. I've (re)built a 16 spoke wheel with a 30mm deep-section aluminum rim. While in the build process, initially, I could clearly see a ""small hop"" in the rim. This is normal and is more likley to be exaggerated with a rim containing fewer spokes, taboot.

I'm not sure how you can be so absolutely certain that the ""small hop"" is a damaged rim and not a misaligned wheel. Of course, this is so purely reading his comments and not seeing the wheel for yourself in person.

Did you take notice what was absent from Richard's comments? I did not read things like: there were visible cracks or stress marks in the rim.

Sure I could be wrong, but re-reading Richard's posts, the bike shop's reply sure does seem to be very dismissive.
"

Anonymous's picture
An anonymous cow (not verified)

Hi Peter,

Assuredly, it's more difficult (very difficult, even) to damage a 30mm section rim. And I think we both agree that a low-spoke count wheel will be near impossible to fix if there is a real hop.

As to how I can be so sure it's a radial hop, and not just a lateral out-of-true or a manufacturing flaw? Richard described it as a hop, and said the wheel was no imperfect, the bike shop guy who looked at it said it was a hop, and recommended he not try and fix it. Richard seems like an astute fellow, and presumably the bike shop guy has seen a few wheels before, so I'm reasonably willing to take them at their word.

But the biggest clue is this -- if you work in a bike shop, you know you make money off service. If the wheel was just laterally untrue, you'd sell the guy a spoke, and charge him $20 for 6 minutes of work! That's good service. But if you've got a hop in a low spoke count wheel, and you know it can't be fixed, you're better off copping to that, than dealing with an customer who complains that you've still got a 1mm hop after re-tensioning and re-truing. In this case, actions speak louder than words.

BTW, I don't disagree with any part of your plan if it were a 32h box section wheel. I didn't realize that he hadn't posted the information about his wheel type until after that.

- Christian

Anonymous's picture
<a href="http://www.OhReallyOreilly.com">Peter O'Reilly</a> (not verified)
Fair enough

"Your comments are well served, but you are assuming that person in the bike shop is a mechanic and not a salesperson working the floor. Additionally, there is another assumed condition and that is the mechanic is a competent wheel builder.

From my experience, there's plenty more who are not, then who are. For instance, I remember some time ago, before I learned to work on my own wheels, a very popular and well known bike shop, that sponsors a local bike race team, had trued my rear wheel (32 spoke Open Pro). As soon as I rode the bike out of the shop, I heard, ""ping, ping, ping..."" noise. When I arrived home, 1 mile later, the wheel was so out of true the tire was rubbing the chainstay. The shops follow-up reply was pure BS, even to this, then, non-mechanically enclined person.

Maybe many NYC bike shop mechanics know the proper way to build a wheel, but instead cut corners and take advantage of folks ignorance. For instance...

If someone spent 6 minutes of work to replace a spoke, I'd say that is very poor service. Sure removing the tire, tube, rim tape and sliding in a new spoke, then tensioning it (and requiring more tension than the other spokes), is 6 minutes of work, but while the rim will not touch the brake pad there will still be a slight lateral hop (untrueness).

Will this be a problem for the bike owner riding out the shop door? No. Will it be a problem many miles down the road? Most likely.

When the wheel subsequently goes out of true or another spoke breaks or there is a crack in the rim near the spoke hole, weeks or months later - the cyclist will have no ryhme or reason to believe it was due in whole or part to the wheel not being properly and uniformly tensioned. Before I knew better, I experienced such at a couple different shops in the city when having broken spokes replaced.

For instance, it is like getting your oil changed at the local repair shop, faithfully so, and never having the oil filter replaced.

At a $200 hourly labor charge, they've done an excellent job of spinning the bike owner's proverbial wheel."

Anonymous's picture
An anonymous cow (not verified)

I agree with most of your points, but I don't agree that it's necessary to re-tension a whole wheel for one broken spoke, on a properly built wheel, assuming the spoke broke from a foreign object or accident. Just check the tension with a tensiometer (or pitch) and tension it within tolerance of the other spokes.

The reason you generally have to re-tension and re-true a whole wheel when you start breaking spokes, is that the only wheels that break spokes (with the aforementioned caveat about foreign objecst) is wheels that have low and uneven spoke tension, typically machine-built ones. The problem with those wheels is that they were never built right to start with, so the broken spoke is just a symptom of general malaise. A well built wheel will fail at the rim before the spokes break.

I AM assuming that the wheel in question was built with high even tension. Most prebuilts are pretty good that way. The way they suck is different (low spoke counts and poor replacement parts).

- Christian

Anonymous's picture
<a href="http://www.OhReallyOreilly.com">Peter O'Reilly</a> (not verified)

"Christian,

One more comment is that we do not know for sure if the spoke bent as a result due to the impact of the rim or if the spoke bent as a result of direct impact. That's a significant detail.

Anyway, I agree with your contrasting comments and it was a good discussion covering all the bases, I reckon.

One wont know the outcome of the rim's fate until all of the spokes are undone and the rim's profile can be compared with a new rim. If I was a betting man, I'd say a new rim is needed (even if it is really not damaged) given that a replacement rim for that wheel is a ""special order"" item."

Anonymous's picture
John T. Chiarella (not verified)
Imperfect Front Wheel

Drop the thing off at one of the better bike shops. Have them order a duplicate rim and a few extra spokes for this repair and your own personal reserve stock.

STOP PLAYING AND PAY. :-)

Anonymous's picture
Bob Shay (not verified)
I agree with John C.

If you are worried about it, just have it rebuilt at a good bike shop.

Anonymous's picture
Richard P. (not verified)
result

"Well, I got my bike back from Conrad's bike shop today. The mechanic, Yee, got rid of the hop somehow without having to do a rebuild. The wheel spins pretty true, I was impressed, especially since no one else would touch the wheel. Bent spoke was replaced as well. Total cost for the wheel fix $25. But they charged a ridiculous $20 to re-center a rear brake and ""check out bike"" for any other problems, which there were none, and I doubt they even looked. I didn't argue 'cause I was happy the wheel was fixed.

Thanks everyone for your input as I have learned a lot about the different options I have for when I damage a wheel."

cycling trips