Would you replace a buckled wheel?

I managed to get my front wheel pretty badly buckled last weekend… To the extent that I had to beat it on the ground to fit back through the forks.

Today I jumped on it and then tweaked the spokes until it was pretty true. The question is, will it quit on me one day and break my face? Anyone had any experience with straightening big wobbles? Should I get a new rim?

Rim is Mavic XC 717, BTW.

Given that I'm not rolling in money, my inclination is to chance it…

it might or it might not fail.

Given its the front wheel, whats the worst that could happen?

I know several guys who've done this and they seem OK.

As long as there aren't any cracks in the rim it should be OK as long as you can true it properly. If you (or LBS) can't then it's had it. I would've done the same a few weeks ago but there was a crack about 2/3rds the width of the rim, so the rim's in the bin.

Be careful though, any sign of the wheel not behaving how it's supposed to you need to sort it, and make sure your spoke tension's good, otherwise you'll just do it again.

I did the same thing around June this year. Bent it back into shape and rode on it for a while. It was never "right". Replaced it recently but mostly because the hub had gone it never failed.

That's fairly reassuring. There aren't going to be any guarantees, but no horror stories so far.

The spoke tension wasn't the issue in the first place – someone ploughed into my wheel side-on – but it's worth checking now.

I'll be keeping a close eye on it (as much as is possible on a night ride).

Thanks, folks.

If you are just riding about it will be ok, but if you are doing jumps and big hitschances are at some point it will return the its buckled shape.
Which might result in a big failure.

Aidan….it'll be fine….until we're 20miles from the LO at about 9:45pm one tuesday (in Jan in the sleet). Should I carry a spare just in case?

One of the things I used to look out for when truing a damaged wheel was the spoke stress that would get knocked out when you least want it to (i.e. when you're out riding). The closest description I can find at the moment is here. Originally I learnt it from the book by Jobst Brandt that's mentioned there (and if I could find the book now then I'd double check what it said).