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Shoutout to the old guy at the bike co-op who showed me how to true a wheel with just zip ties

I was at the Bicycle Collective in Salt Lake City last month, totally stuck on a wobbly rear wheel. This older volunteer named Frank walked over, grabbed two zip ties, and clipped them to the fork as reference points. He tightened the spokes in a specific order and had it spinning true in like 10 minutes. Has anyone else used zip ties as a cheap truing stand trick?
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2 Comments
benwilliams
Yeah, Frank's method sounds about right. That's how I learned too, but what I'm wondering is how many spokes did he do at a time? Did he go a quarter turn each or a full turn? I've seen some guys try to do half turns and end up overcorrecting, then the wheel gets worse before it gets better. Also, did he loosen any spokes first or just tighten everything up? I'm curious about the order he used because that's where I always mess up.
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barbarac67
barbarac671mo ago
LOSE a spoke and then TIGHTEN it? I've NEVER heard of that before!
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