Unless you have some crazy high end wheels that take special tools or skills, I would say this is a DIY maintenance. It would be a hassle to have to visit a bike shop for this level of repair, and it's something you might want to do in the field on occasion.

You don't really need a truing stand. A spoke wrench is the only tool you really need (and a lot of bike multi-tools have that as a function). A spoke tension gauge is also useful. A truing stand would be nice but you can do pretty well without it, just brace a tool on the fork or rear triangle so it barely rubs the rim and listen for the high spots and low spots and make small adjustments. If you use care I don't think you would make a mess of it.

Also, a spoke wrench question.

I have a multi-size one. The 14g is too small, but 13g kind of fits but is a little loose - is there another size in-between these 2 that would work? I can't figure it out. No idea what these are in mm.

As above for everyday training wheels, although I'd be less definitive for race wheels. I ended up graduating from truing to full wheelbuilding (and then you do need a stand) as I found it easier to choose and spec the rims and spokes I wanted, and at same time get spare spokes.

Just a few other things. Have a good read of the Sheldon Brown (RIP) website. Make sure you understand about the paired nature of wheel true, and also that you think WHY the wheel is out of true in the first place. Otherwise you are looking at an endless cycle of trueing and spoke breaks. Also be aware that the nipples can shear if the spokes have been in for a while and that is a PITA depending on the rim.

Minor truing is pretty easy to do yourself. And as the other poster mentioned, doesn't require a stand. Just watch videos, start with small adjustments.

Major truing, say after multiple broken spokes (or a whole rebuild), is a bit harder, and that's where extra tools like a stand and spoke tension meter can become handy.

I do most bike maintenance myself, and will do minor truing. But I send rebuilds to a shop. A good wheelbuilder can just do it way better and more quickly than I can.

I’m going to go the other way…

To successfully true wheels and be left with a strong wheel, spoke tensions need to be balanced. Getting a true and round wheel is the easy bit…

Something like the Park Tool spoke tensiometer is okay for home use, and about the minimum necessary tool beyond a spoke wrench. A wheel trying stand isn’t necessary, but it sure is nice to have. Get a Spokey or similar rather than buggering around with some multi tool spoke wrench that isn’t comfortable. It’s cheap and cheerful.

If getting the shop to do it is cheaper than the tensiometer, decide if it’s something you’d like to do. Personally, I enjoy wheel building and it is simple - as long as you’re methodical. Have fun!

Out of all the tools in the toolbox the spoke wrench has the most potential to cause destruction and havoc on your bicycle in the shortest amount of time. With that said I have been doing small corrections (often on the bike and not in the stand) for years. Wheelbuilders are getting scarce as most bikes come with factory wheels. With the low spoke counts and high tension of the spokes boutique wheels are really getting tricky to work on by the home mechanic. I still run mostly 32 and 36 hole rims so a twist here and an untwist there usually get good results.

My advice is be really careful when messing with spokes on your own or let the pros do it. I have only had about five builders do all my wheels in the past 50 or so years. Every other year or so I give my guy a half dozen sets of wheels to repack or retension. Takes special tools to re do Chris King and other special hubs. Worth every penny to the wheel guy.

Hmmmm :-/

I learned to true and build wheels from this DVD:
http://store.velocityusa.com/...r-wheel-building-dvd

I would get a 4 sided spoke wrench, a nice stand, a tensiometer, and have at it.

The multi-size "ring" ones are often forged and looser spec'd. Dedicated wrenches like Park are typically machined to tighter tolerances.



VS

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

One of the other mechanics I worked with years ago told me that at a shop he used to work for, they had a big goldfish bowl full of spoke wrenches right next to the cash register, for $1.00 each. That was one of their most popular last minute impulse buys. He said that they sold those at a loss, but more than made up for it truing or rebuilding wheels after the customers screwed them up...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

Well I think I have my answer. I emailed my LBS to ask the cost of truing a wheel - apparently roughly $70 - per wheel! :-O (welcome to Switzerland).

That's pretty cheap! Last time I had one done was UKP50 and that was about 15 years back.

Where in Switzerland are you? I am in Zug, near Zurich.

I have been trueing my own wheels for many years. I have built a couple of wheels in the past. recently I rebuilt a MB wheel that was on an XTR hub but the rim and some spokes had been destroyed around 10 years ago. I sourced an NOS Mavic 517 rim and some extra spokes, utterly delighted with the result, building a wheel is a real sense of achievement.

It isnt too difficult true wheels, but there are some watchouts. Get a spoke tension meter, to avoid over or under tensioning spokes. Alloy nipples corrode, then they break, which is a real PITA. Repairing an old wheel with Alloy nipples I recon 30% of the nipples will fail. I tend to replace them sith Stainless Steel nipples. Tueing stand makes things much easier

Oberwallis. Totally unsuitable location for triathlon training really.

Plenty of people have built and maintained good wheels without a tension meter. It's possible if the rim is good, the initial build is good, and the person working on the wheel recognizes that they should be making minor adjustments and spreading any adjustments over a broad area if possible.

The OP and everyone should also recognize that damage to a rim cannot properly be fixed by tightening or loosening spokes - the rim may end up true but very imbalanced and thus weak. A tension meter will demonstrate this quickly, but it's something that can be understood w/o one.

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http://www.jt10000.com/

Would you pay someone, who's not got years of 'feel' in their fingers or experience building wheels, to build you a set of wheels without measuring the tension of the spokes? Of course you wouldn't. Therefore the OP should invest in a tensiometer, or give the wheels to a bike shop to do the work.

I build wheels for myself. I'm not a commercial builder, and don't build huge volumes, and I would never build a wheel off just feel as my fingers aren't 'calibrated' enough. Yours may be, and more power to you - kudos. I have trued a wheel out on a ride to get home, though, but - in my opinion - getting it true and round is the easy part....

Isn't that pretty close to the IM Switzerland course? Some of my favourite climbs are close to there: Grosse Scheidegg, Grimsel etc

No, Thun is about a 2 hour drive from me. I live about a 1 hour drive from somewhere safe and smooth to ride and 45 minutes drive from the nearest decent sized swimming pool and 2 hours from open water.

LOL.

I've built about a dozen wheels in my life and all worked very well. No tension meter and I'm not saying my hands are particularly good. So I pretty much just count turns until final truing, so the wheels come out evenly balanced. All the spokes are close in tension. Then a little adjustment in final truing. It's not rocket science if you're careful. In fact, the *very first* wheel I ever built came out great - true and strong and I used it for years. I had a very good book and was careful.

Truing wheels, if you understand what you are doing and the wheels are fundamentally sound is not a big deal without a tension meter.

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http://www.jt10000.com/

My wheelbuilder has built around 30,000 wheelsets and he charges me $35 per wheel to completely build a wheel from scratch. He never uses a tensiometer. You can hear if the spokes are tight enough by plucking them.

I've only built 15000 wheels- give or take, and I do use a tensionometer. It's a great aid in making every wheel consistent. And I pluck. Going by sound can get you a long ways toward even tension, but I must not have perfect pitch. I can't tell what the KGF is from spoke pitch.

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Andy Tetmeyer (I work at HED)

Wow....let's see, if a guy can make a wheel in 1 hour and works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, doing nothing but making wheels (e.g. no time dealing with customers, ordering parts, shipping, etc) then he can make 1000 wheelsets a year by my math, so 30 years spent lacing nearly 2 million spokes. That's what I'd call a low growth career path.

Blimey this gets more complicated. I watched a park tool video on spoke tensioning - so apparently you need a table to convert the reading from the meter to the actual tension depending on your spoke size. My spokes are apparently steel 1.1x2.8 - yet that measurement isn’t on the park tool chart (typical) so how do you figure it out? 🤨

Ahh, no worries , their app lets you input exact measurements.

Still looks complicated though - especially rear wheels where you're looking at different tensions on each side 🤨

If he is doing all the work himself, he can build a front wheel in about 25 minutes and a rear wheel in about 30 minutes.

He usually has one or two assistants that lace the wheels and get the nipples about 90%. It might take him 5 minutes to finish a wheel.