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Trying to true a wheel in a parking lot taught me patience
Got a flat on a group ride outside Austin about 8 years back and the spare didn't seat right. I was using a borrowed Park Tool spoke wrench, trying to fix a wobble in the rear wheel by feel under a streetlight. The rim was so out of true I just kept turning nipples randomly, making it worse for 20 minutes. Finally a guy from the ride came over and showed me how to work in quarter turns from the tight spots. Has anyone else had a roadside repair turn into a mess that took way longer than it should have?
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clairen851mo ago
I mean nobody's talking about the actual problem being a borrowed spoke wrench. That's the real issue right there. Different spoke wrenches have slightly different thicknesses and shapes. If you use one that's not a perfect match for your nipple size you'll strip the corners off before you even get a full turn. Happened to me in a ditch outside Flagstaff. I was using a cheap multitool wrench that was barely grabbing. Rounded three nipples before I realized I was just making them worse. So the real lesson is don't borrow tooling for a critical repair like that. Bring your own or know exactly what you're grabbing. Otherwise you're fighting the wrench and the wheel at the same time.
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river_allen1mo ago
Wait, has nobody else here had a wrench that just flat out deformed the nipple without stripping it? I had a 14 gauge wheel where the nipple walls were just soft enough that even the correct Park Tool wrench would compress them slightly, making the fit loose after half a dozen turns. You'd go to tighten and it'd slip like a stripped thread but the corners were fine. Turns out some cheap nipples are made from this super soft brass that just gives way under pressure. So it might not even be the borrowed tool's fault, it could be the manufacturer cheaped out on nipple material. I'd rather round three nipples from a bad tool than deal with that sneaky deformation nonsense.
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