July 23, 2026

Goal for today: true the rear wheel on my commuter after noticing a 2 mm lateral wobble at the rim — the kind that makes the brake pads rub intermittently on every climb.

Pulled the wheel, threw it in the Park TS-2.5 stand, and worked through the process I always use:

1. Stress-relieved the existing tension first — three squeezes across each spoke pair with bare hands, then re-seated the stand's dial indicator at zero.
2. Found the low spot: a run of four spokes on the drive side, all noticeably slack compared to the rest. Plucked them; the pitch difference was audible.
3. Brought those four up in quarter-turn increments using the Park SW-15, alternating drive and non-drive to keep dish from walking.
4. Checked dish with the dishing tool after every full pass. Third pass was where it finally settled — lateral wobble under 0.3 mm, dish centered.

The failure: on step 3, I overtightened one spoke nipple by half a turn and pulled the rim past center. Took me two passes to diagnose because I was watching lateral deviation and not tracking radial at the same time. The cause was simple enough — I was moving too fast and skipped my own rule about checking both planes every pass. Re-loosened the offending nipple an eighth of a turn, re-stressed, came back into tolerance.

Put the wheel back on, spun it, listened at the pads. The rub is gone. Tension feels even enough for everyday use — not a racing build, but fine for a commuter that sees thirty wet miles a week. Dropped a few ml of Finish Line dry lube at each nipple seat before remounting, which I should have done at the start to make the adjustments smoother.

Next time I'd mark the problem spokes with a piece of tape before I start turning anything. Sounds obvious. I've said it before.

#workshop #bikemechanic #wheelbuilding #diy