Budget Bike Repairs: Fix Bent Rims & Broken Spokes For ½ Price
- Bike repairs can easily leave us feeling like we have to rush to the mechanic
- However a surprising number of fixes can be done ourselves at home or on the road
- All it takes is a few tools and some practice to save money on professional repairs
Bike wheels are vulnerable to a number of issues. When you hit a particularly bad bump in the road, you could find yourself with a bent rim that requires urgent attention. Similarly, spokes which are too tight or too loose can break, potentially causing serious problems such as the wheel collapsing while you ride.
Fortunately, you don’t always have to rush to the bike mechanic and pay out for professional repairs. Tom Church, Co-Founder of money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk, said: ‘It can be worrying when your bike wheel needs repairing, but instead of booking in with your mechanic you can save money by learning a few tricks at home. The tools you need are surprisingly cheap and there are loads of tutorials online. With a bit of practice you’ll be able to fix these common wheel problems in no time.’
Fix Broken Spokes - Replacements Cost Under £1 Each
Spokes can break because they are tensioned too tightly - or too loosely. If you’re riding a bike with over-tensioned spokes, the wheel could bend from the pressure. Loose spokes are similarly dangerous - they will flex more and will break more easily. If you’re unfortunate enough to have several spokes give out, the entire wheel could collapse while you’re on the go. A quick check for spokes is to pluck each one and listen. If one makes a different sound to the others, it could need to be tightened.
It’s worth having a spare spoke in case you need to replace it on the road, but if you can’t do this you can loosen the two spokes next to the broken one to help balance out the wheel tension and assist with part of the realignment. You can then place the spoke through the hub hole and wrap it through the other spokes in the same way as the others, before putting the nipple through the rim and using a spoke wrench to tighten it up. This should only be done if you have to get home and there’s no other way, though - it’s not any kind of permanent fix.
The best solution is to replace the spoke. To do this, the first step is to unscrew the spoke from the nipple point at the rim of your bike. Then remove your bike wheel - you may need a tyre lever depending on your bike type, which only costs a couple of pounds. Next, push the rim to one side and push the spoke and nipple out. You should be able to unscrew the spoke from the nipple, and reuse the nipple, but sometimes you may need to buy a spoke nipple for under £1 on average. Unthread the other end of the spoke from the hub eyelet, then prepare to thread the new one in. Examine the wheel and see how it has been laced so you can follow the pattern, and ascertain whether the spoke needs to be threaded from the inside or the outside of the hub. Insert the spoke into the hub, then use part of the old spoke to thread the nipple through the rim if you removed it. Screw on the nipple the other way around, thread it in from the top and use the screwdriver to tighten the nipple onto the spoke until enough is through the rim to catch the spoke in and affix it. Then tighten the spoke to the right tension and retrue the wheel - instructions for this are below.
You will need a spoke key, which you can easily pick up online or in a bike shop for around a fiver. Make sure you get the right size for your bike. It’s also important to have a pair of pliers, a flat-headed screwdriver and of course your replacement spoke, which will need to be the right size as well. You will likely have the pliers and screwdriver at home, and the good news is that if you’re buying a single spoke this will often cost under £1. Alternatively, you can buy multipacks for around a tenner so that you will always be able to replace a broken spoke yourself. For the wheel trueing part, you will need a spoke wrench, which will cost a couple of pounds on average. This will generally be cheaper than going to a bike repair shop - as a reference, Halfords charges an average fee of £20 for replacing between 1 and 5 spokes.
True A Wheel - Pick Up A Spoke Wrench For £5 Or Under
There are many reasons why you could end up with a bent rim - you could have hit a big pothole or broken a spoke. You will know when your rim is bent because it will make a distinctive noise whenever it goes around and ultimately slow you down.
Whether your rim is bent due to a loose spoke, an overly tightened one or a broken one, you will essentially have an unbalanced tension spread across the spokes. The wheel will spin out of alignment and you will need to take action in order to fix it after you’ve sorted the spoke issue. This is known as ‘trueing’ the wheel. You may think that a specialist is required, but the reality is that unless you have a racing bike and want it in peak condition, you can do a decent job at trueing a relatively bent rim yourself and getting back on the road.
If your spoke is broken, replace it using the instructions above before starting the trueing process. Your job will be easier if it needs tightening or loosening as you can go around the wheel to see which one feels different, and tighten or loosen using a bike spoke wrench. Then it will be time to true the whole wheel and ensure it’s aligned properly before you set off again.
Once you have checked the bike to ensure it’s the rim which needs trueing and not another issue such as the axle not sitting straight or problems with the brake cable, rotate the wheel to see where it is closer to the brake pad and where it is further away. Rotate the wheel to the rim area which hits the brake pad, and tighten the spoke opposite this bend. This will pull the rim in the opposite direction, pulling the rim back into alignment.
Many of us may take our bikes straight to the shop once something is wrong with it, but sometimes you will be paying more than you would if you fixed it yourself. A spoke wrench will cost up to a fiver on average, whereas if you go to, for example, Halfords, their standard pricing for a wheel true is £10 per wheel. So you may as well pick up this repair skill at home.
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Another option is to buy a strong bike that isn't overly light so the wheels have more spokes are far less likely to fail. Something like a 36 spoke 26" wheel with a double wall rim would be hard to break a spoke with normal riding. Ok so hills need a bit more work but then that is the point of exercise but the bike requires far less maintenance with regard wheels.
A good low maintenance bike is the Carrera Subway at Halfords, no suspension and a mountain bike frame with decent 27.5" mountain bike wheels. A very versatile bike capable of taking some knocks and I think its only 13-14kg so not that terrible for weight either.
Road bikes and hybrids can be far higher maintenance as they often have the larger 700c wheels some of which have a low spoke number if you get a particularly light model.