DIY How to True a Wheel on Bike with No Truing Stand

Company: 

Today, we’re going to show you how to true a wheel right off your bicycle. This isn’t what is normally done at the shop, but if you’re at home or out on the trail you can touch up your wheel and get it rideable again by using your brakes as a wheel truing stand. I’m going to take small turns on each spoke to find out where it’s rubbing. When you find the area, tighten the drive side a little bit and loosen the non-drive side.

Tighten with Spoke Wrench

Slowly work your way around the bike doing this to areas where the wheel rubs on the brakes. If you don’t have a bike stand, you can always do this same technique with the bike upside down. Notice that I overshoot on the spoke nipples, so the whole spoke body doesn’t stay twisted. So I keep spinning it and it gets better and better. If you work just in one area, you tend to over tension the spokes, so try and work through the whole wheel. At the same time, I’ll go through and put extra tension on the spokes.

Put Extra Tension on Spokes

Just grab a pair and work around. That will help the spokes to settle in more. After that, I’ll go around the wheel and touch it up again. Using the clearance between the rim wall and the brake pad as a way to measure. It’s a good idea to carry a spoke wrench while out on a ride because you can do this fix pretty easily. It can be difficult to get the wheel perfect with this method, but it isn’t difficult to get the bike rideable, and this can save you if you are far away from home.