I have managed to knock my Crest Rim out of shape. Bit of a flat spot and bent slightly to one side. The LBR is saying it can’t be repaired as the spokes are already quite tight on the side that would need tightening. This would mean the other side would need loosening off to a dangerous degree.

I’m no expert but I’m tempted to take the rim off, straighten as much as possible by hand and then rebuild. I’ve trued a wheel before so think I could have a go. The wheel doesn’t look that bad to me and you really need it in a truing stand to appreciate the alignment.

My question is would it be safe to bend back or will the rim be weakened and dangerous to ride ? It’s a front wheel so any folding could be catastrophic.

I’m no expert but 🙄

Give it a go, just get some dental insurance before you ride it.

tbh, if your lbs won’t touch it then chances are it’s beyond saving?

you really need it in a truing stand to appreciate the alignment.

Then why bother doing anything? Or is that an exaggeration!?

If it still runs in your fork, leave it with the wobble. If not, I’d not be bending it back and relying on it. YMMV.

Then why bother doing anything? Or is that an exaggeration!?

it is a bit of an exaggeration, however with it out the fork it’s doesn’t look that damaged. But it does have a wobble that means as is it couldn’t be ridden. Judging be the responses I need to be looking for a new rim. Actually given the cost of the stans rim a new hope hoop probably makes more financial sense.

Depending on the size of the bend, Its an entirely reasonable thing to do. Your LBS won’t do it because its not economically viable, but you as a private individual may have bucket loads of time.

Back in the day when arrows were still aluminium instead of carbon, we used to straighten bent arrows by hand, with the use of a jig and meter that measured the deviation.

This is in principle exactly the same thing as you’re talking about. However, without fashioning some kind of equivalent jig to allow fairly precise wanjing in all three dimensions, I think you’ll spend a bucket load of time getting something as bent as when you started, get fed up and go and get a new one. So save yourself time and frustration and run it as is and replace as needed.

Good luck with that……..

Not worth the risk tbh.
Would you achieve a good result, possibly.
Would i ride it with faith..probably not.

not sure I’d enjoy my riding with an element of niggling doubt every time I approached a downhill and glanced at my front wheel….

Are they just talking about truing it or did they discuss totally relaxing the wheel and retensioning?

I would buy a new rim if its that bad, they are going cheap at On One .

They’re not, they are out of stock.

It’ll be weak as it is.

IN a sense you have nothing to lose but these rims are so light they weaken more than other rims when “straightened” and it may not end up much better (I speak from experience)

I’ve seen sense and will look for a new rim, not worth the risk. The on-one deal was a good price but as skywalker says out of stock.

White Olympic on crc?

Loosen all the spokes to see how bad the rim is, then make your mind up… I bet it won’t be as bad as you think.

I have straightened wheels by removing all spoke tension, correcting the bend in the rim by bending it back and then retensioning and truing. It works OK, but I’m not sure how much confidence I’d have doing it with a Crest. If you can get reasonable spoke tension back, the wheel won’t be that weak, and won’t fold whilst JRA but won’t be as strong as it once was if you’re doing big drops etc. It really depends how good a job you can do, what riding you do and whether you can just afford to buy a new rim – personally if I bent one of my Olympics it would be new rim time.

Ok, decided I would take the rim off to take a look whilst I tried to source a replacement. Now that it’s off the hub it looks absolutely fine. Laid it flat on a straight surface and it honestly looks perfect regarding side to side alignment. Will probably have a go at building it back up to see what it looks like.

🙂