To get it dead nuts on? Eye ball test? I assume if it’s off just a little the ride can feel off and less efficient.
I was considering a laser leveler?
Any tips to get it dead on? Or is close, enough?
I eye-ball it
.
I agree it is a little strange they so much money time and effort is devoted to getting the bike as fast as possible and then just eyeball the front wheel as well as the back wheel in the dropouts
.
Why do you need to align your wheels?
Plumb line from end of the stem.
I’ve also used a laser level; they are like $10 or less at Target, Amazon, or Home Depot.
If your eye can’t see the deviation, then it’s not material. Stand behind the saddle so that you can see the top tube line up with the wheel, just to be sure. But I wouldn’t be anal about it.
Take the front wheel off and rest fork on the ground. Then place a level flush against for forks. I use a yellow one. Then, look down from the bar to the level and eyeball equal parts of the left and right side of the bar to be parallel with the level. Perfect alignment every time.
The most significant learning experience I had in regard to this issue was the time I handed a perfectly aligned bike to a customer and he proceeded to berate me because it didn’t look straight to him. I knew that it absolutely was aligned correctly to within a mm, but I got out my tools to loosen the stem bolts and f**k up the alignment until it looked correct to him, in his parallax view.
Because what actually matters is that it looks like it’s in alignment to the person riding it. And a perfectly aligned wheel/stem just doesn’t look like everything is straight to some people, on some bikes, sometimes. EOS.
Stand over your top tube, use the front or rear of the handlebar and the tips of the forks to sight them equally. Both fork tips should be equal with the back or front of you bar. If one side has a gap, it’s not aligned.
I wish they had a tool or something because I’m partially blind in one eye and it’s really hard to eyeball it.
Take the front wheel off and rest fork on the ground. Then place a level flush against for forks. I use a yellow one. Then, look down from the bar to the level and eyeball equal parts of the left and right side of the bar to be parallel with the level. Perfect alignment every time.
WHS ^^^ just need a straight edge/spirit level wedged against the front of the forks and line up the handlebars on each side, eyeballing from above.
Ok so your front wheel and bars aren’t aligned by let’s say 1 degree. You’re not going to ride with your front wheel 1 degree off, you’re going to ride with you’re handlebars 1 degree off and the front wheel tracking the same as it otherwise would. I daresay the drag increase or reduction from a 1 degree change in bar angle is inline with roughly 1/10th of what the change for a 1 degree yaw angle would be.
Of course this is all assuming that your position is perfectly balanced and your bicycle and you are perfectly vertical, otherwise there will inevitably be some wheel scrub that’s costing 100x more than any variation in set bar angle.
Someone has made a $50 tool for this based on a laser level: https://thingswecre8.myshopify.com/en-us/products/thingswecre8-staystraight-deluxe-bicycle-handlebar-alignment-tool
.
😂😂😂 I imagine the tool for setting cranks level for photos is next
.
Close. GCN will sell you a small plexiglass triangle to prop up your bike for pics for only $20. Ironically, it positions the cranks at 12/6…making your bike not “vault worthy.”
I wish they had a tool or something because I’m partially blind in one eye and it’s really hard to eyeball it.
If you aren’t blind in one eye, you need to close one for alignment tasks. So I’m confused why you’d say this.
I have astigmatism in both eyes, to different degrees, so it is hard for me to align the bars too. There are laser alignment tools to help…https://thingswecre8.myshopify.com/en-us/products/thingswecre8-staystraight-deluxe-bicycle-handlebar-alignment-tool. I do not have one of these, my shop has a more expensive version that I have used and it is SWEET!
I was going to comment generally, but your shared experience speaks to what I believe is most people don’t understand the actual asymmetry of their vision, which is most notable when performing a dominant eye test.
To Mathmatics point: in motion the wheels self align, which is what’s critical. If the rider doesn’t perceive their frontend is out of alignment by whatever amount, in motion, then it’s not a problem needing resolution. Personally, I’m much more anal about brake lever & aero bar symmetry than front wheel alignment… especially aero bars - I’m looking at those damn things for hours on end and if their no aligned I spend hours with my attention on them rather than the road! ha ha