Watched a shop mechanic true a wheel in 3 minutes flat after I spent 2 hours on it

Saw this older guy at the co-op in Tucson zip through a radial wobble on a beat up MTB rim using just a spoke wrench and a zip tie as a gauge, has anyone else had a moment where you realized you've been way overthinking a basic fix?

3 comments

3 Comments

jenkins.reese5d ago

Oh man that hits close to home. I spent a whole Saturday once trying to lace up a rear wheel for my commuter bike and kept getting the tension all wrong, ended up with a wobble that looked like a potato chip. Then I watched a crusty old mechanic at the shop downtown just pop the rim in a truing stand and work it by feel in like 2 minutes flat, not even using a dial gauge or anything. Made me realize I was way too focused on numbers and diagrams when sometimes you just gotta eyeball it and make small adjustments one at a time.

the_eva5d ago

Nah I gotta call out that crusty mechanic thing a little, because even the old timers use a truing stand if they have one handy. That guy just happened to have a lot of practice doing it visually because he's done it a thousand times. The real trick isn't skipping the stand, it's knowing you only need to tighten each spoke maybe a quarter turn at a time max, and never jump more than a couple spokes apart when you're chasing a wobble.

juliashah3d ago

My buddy Dave tried to true a wheel on his kitchen table once using zip ties as a makeshift stand and a sharpie taped to a butter knife for a gauge. We still joke about it because he got it pretty close but then overcorrected and snapped a spoke. The sound was like a gunshot in his apartment, scared his cat so bad it knocked over a whole plant. He spent the next hour picking potting soil out of his carpet. Now he just pays the shop 20 bucks and calls it a day. Honestly some things are worth outsourcing just for the peace of mind lol.