Trued a wheel that was wobbling 4mm and saved a customer's Saturday ride

Guy rolled in around 4pm on a Friday with a rear wheel that was wobbling so bad it was rubbing the chainstay. He said he'd hit a pothole on Riverside Drive and thought the rim was done for. I put it on the stand and the lateral runout was close to 4mm, which is more than I usually see outside of a taco. What saved it was a spoke tension check, three drive-side spokes had gone completely slack while the rest were still fine. I brought it back to about 1mm, re-tensioned the whole wheel, and he rode out before we closed. Half a millimeter of adjustment on a spoke wrench is the difference between a new wheel and a 20 dollar fix. Any of you get nervous when a customer watches the whole true job over your shoulder?

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wyatt_garcia12d ago

Does 4mm of runout really mean the wheel was almost dead? I've seen plenty of wheels with that much side to side play that straightened out fine once you dealt with the tension, and three loose drive side spokes sounds more like the wheel was never tensioned right from the start than a pothole wrecking it. Sounds like you did good work, but a pothole alone usually doesn't kill a wheel that fast.

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