Took a wheel true class and my first attempt came out looking like a potato chip

I went to this shop in Portland last spring for a wheel building workshop. The instructor showed us a before photo of a wheel that was basically taco-shaped, and after he worked on it, it was spinning dead straight. Thought I could match that on my first try, but man, I ended up with so much wobble it looked like a funhouse mirror. Anybody else have a wheel true go sideways on them like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

burns.richard14d ago

Bent a spoke on the first one I tried and just called it a day.

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nathan19314d ago

Yeah, "bent a spoke and called it a day" pretty much sums up my first attempt too... @burns.richard do you still think about that wheel or did you just toss it? I kept mine as a reminder of how humbling truing really is. That taco wheel the instructor showed us, that's actually way easier to fix than a potato chip wheel because the rim is just bent in one direction. Potato chip wobbles mean the rim has both vertical and lateral hops which is a nightmare. When you get a hop that bad, you're basically chasing the tension all around the wheel and it takes forever to even it out. Did you ever go back and try again after you bent that spoke, or was that the end of wheel building for you?

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