# Vertical Truing Tips?



## chomxxo (Oct 15, 2008)

OK I built up a 650b front wheel this weekend and am loving it. On the truing stand I noticed some ovaling in my wheel build. I thought I could get away with it but nope, it was definitely a problem on my first ride this morning. I fully admit to being a wheel building novice and I've never had this problem before.

Any tips or techniques on how to best vertically true a wheel?


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## Slow Eddie (Jun 13, 2007)

Check out the resources sticky in the wheel/tire forum.

In very broad strokes, rather than tightening some spokes and loosening others to move the rim from side to side, you will be either tightening or loosening a group of spokes to move the rim section towards or away from the hub.


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## Mike T. (Dec 30, 2003)

You're not going to want to hear this but it's much better to not allow hops, when building, than to have to deal with them later. If you read my wheelbuilding info you'll see that it stresses taking ALL spokes down, during initial tensioning, by very equal amounts. I can't remember the last time I had to remove a hop. Very minor ones can be ignored.

But you mention this - "it was definitely a problem on my first ride this morning". I can't imagine what size of a hop would result in a noticeable problem.

If it's that bad, rather than fix the issue and cause a whole load of the dreaded tension unbalance, I'd suggest you slacken everything off back to ground zero and start again. The experience gained will not be lost.


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## LyNx (Oct 26, 2004)

Take Mike's advice, it's very important to take up initial slack on the spokes evenly to avoid this situation, also helps avoid any way out of whack tensions. The time it'd take you to try to mess with this and the resulting tensions etc, it's way better to back all the spokes off till you can see the treads and then take them all down till the threads just disapear and tension from there - Read Mike's wheel building page, it's very helpful!


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## Bikinfoolferlife (Feb 3, 2004)

Like the others said. I'm just wondering what you did about vertical true during your build? That's key during the build...


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## bad mechanic (Jun 21, 2006)

Bikinfoolferlife said:


> I'm just wondering what you did about vertical true during your build?


I'm inclined to disagree with this. I bring my tension up slowly and uniformly, then use a tension meter to bring all my spokes to the same tension (taking into account dish). Once all my spokes are tensioned equally, then I deal with and horizontal truing issues. Usually there are very few. At this point, provided I used quality parts, and vertical hop is minor, and is to be ignored in favor of keeping tension as equal as possible.

What makes a wheel strong is proper and uniform tension.


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## Bikinfoolferlife (Feb 3, 2004)

bad mechanic said:


> I'm inclined to disagree with this. I bring my tension up slowly and uniformly, then use a tension meter to bring all my spokes to the same tension (taking into account dish). Once all my spokes are tensioned equally, then I deal with and horizontal truing issues. Usually there are very few. At this point, provided I used quality parts, and vertical hop is minor, and is to be ignored in favor of keeping tension as equal as possible.
> 
> What makes a wheel strong is proper and uniform tension.


If you noticed your wheel was so out of round during your build to call it "ovaling" you'd address it, though, wouldn't you, i.e. you'd then check and deal with vertical true during your build? What works for you may be fine, but I'm wondering what the OP did...

I check mine for vertical true and address it as I bring the wheel under tension just as I do for lateral true (and dish). I usually only put the tension meter on towards the end to see how I'm judging tension to that point (and I'm usually close, but it's nice to have something for my relatively inexperienced hands and bad ears to check against). This is basically what I was taught to do as well as what guides for wheelbuilding I've read advise. Vertical true hasn't been a big issue for me in any case and my tension turns out relatively equal (but I've also generally built wheels with high quality parts to start with).

Mike T? Roger-m? Shiggy/ What you guys say?

Hey, OP, just curious, what specifics for this wheel? Hub and rim? Spoke type and lengths? And there is a wheel forum for just this sort of thing, too...


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## biketech159 (Jun 4, 2009)

Need info. What type of rim, and spoke and hub were used. As mentioned previously, that can matter.


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## 4slomo (Jul 4, 2006)

Wheel and rim truing (lateral, radial, dish, spoke tensioning) tips:

http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=81

http://miketechinfo.com/new-tech-wheels-tires.htm


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