Trainer stand repurposed as wheel trueing service center

[Urban Fatbiker]

I've been trueing wheels this week. Got tired of hearing wawawawa on buzzbike going down tbe road. I have an old Trek frame I used to true two double-wall wheels I robbed from a Diamondback step-thru. Great wheels but way out of true. Freehub is 8-speed, there is no dish, stainless spokes.

Impressed myself I gotta say, within less than a 1mm window of true, I put them on buzzbike with a 34-12 six-speed cluster, rode it and smiled. I hear road but not wheel! It will ride hands free now I tried it a block or so. Then thought maybe that's enough.

Ok, I wanted to do fatbike. Saw this trainer on my shelf, a $4.99 goodwill special sucky idea.
For THIS, I'd pay that. I can true any of my wheels on my coffee table while drinking my coffee. I can balance, get tires mounted right, even prep and paint, just spin and spray.

Thought I'd share, these crappy things end up thrift, yard sales, or may be in your hoard.

 

[2speedboi]

Good write up, and nice repurposing an antique!

Bike people always make due

 

[Sidewinder Jerry]

View attachment 179125

I've been trueing wheels this week. Got tired of hearing wawawawa on buzzbike going down tbe road. I have an old Trek frame I used to true two double-wall wheels I robbed from a Diamondback step-thru. Great wheels but way out of true. Freehub is 8-speed, there is no dish, stainless spokes.

Impressed myself I gotta say, within less than a 1mm window of true, I put them on buzzbike with a 34-12 six-speed cluster, rode it and smiled. I hear road but not wheel! It will ride hands free now I tried it a block or so. Then thought maybe that's enough.

Ok, I wanted to do fatbike. Saw this trainer on my shelf, a $4.99 goodwill special sucky idea.
For THIS, I'd pay that. I can true any of my wheels on my coffee table while drinking my coffee. I can balance, get tires mounted right, even prep and paint, just spin and spray.

Thought I'd share, these crappy things end up thrift, yard sales, or may be in your hoard.

Ok you have horizontal true; what about vertical true????

 

[digital_life]

Nope never going to work to true a wheel seems like a good idea at first but once you think about how your going to true the axle to the exercise thing a ma jig it will be faster to just chop up a old bike front and rear end and go from there.

As @Sidewinder Jerry said you have one true what about the other.

I don't mean to knock your idea I had a similar idea when I had something that looked like yous but mine was over $300 and looked a lot more beefier

 

[Urban Fatbiker]

Wow.

1) I should have said how I trued wheels. I understand 3D geometry. Yes I address horizontal and vertical. May be my first wheels in 40 years, but I built wheels as a teen using old bike frame as a jig.

I note some don't have the patience to do this, its a tedious repetitive task. I was an expert in tweaking robotic programming and machine mechanics to make tubes with 46 bends drop into zero-contact gauges. My skill at this was renowned by automotive parts mfgrs with robotic bending workcells.

DENSO kept me busy with brake lines for years, even calling me after I'd left my employer. Once called in after their engineers spent two weeks failing to get three tubes fitting, toyota demanding shipments. Plant mgr caught me on break first afternoon and went ballistic. I grabbed a 30-bend brake line, threw it at a zero-point gauge and it fell in place.

Told him I'd have his other tubes done by EOD, if he wanted to pay for two more days fine but I'm done in one.
He went from ballistic, to amazed and thankful, I got a letter on my wall for that stunt.

2) There's NO modification! One bolt removes the roller. Its already equipped to capture the axles of bike wheels, narrow and fat, 20" thru 29". All you need to add is a scale to measure and mark your wobbles humps and dips. The scale taped to side has two zip ties I move in closer to find wobbles, the edge of scale to visualize humps and dips.

I had it off the shelf, and on my coffee table in 10 minutes with a humpy wobbly fat wheel captured, ready to true. 3 hours later, masking and painting a true wheel with less than 1mm runout horizontal AND vertical.

I'll video the next fat wheel before and after. Doing another today.

 

[Sidewinder Jerry]

I've got a cheapo setup but it works. The stand, spoke tool, dishing tool, and spoke tension tool all cost me around $120.

 

[Urban Fatbiker]

I'm eyeballing tools now. If I ever do the SA CK-RS3 hub build I'll need more than a scale and eyeballs.

 

[rusty.western.flyer]

Nice!

Friend is moving so he brought over his vintage Trek and trainer since he doesn't use them, and doesn't want to move them many states away.

Great idea!