Local dealer and HOG chapter had a meet and greet last Saturday. Chance for new oners and old to meet the staff at the dealer and HOG officers and members. Everyone gets a chance to ask qustions etc. One thing that came up was the importance of making sure the spokes are tight on a laced wheel. This was illustrated with a heritidge that was brought in because the rear end had a squishy feel to it. Apparantely it had been going on for quite a while. When the service manager started to ride it into the he felt the rear tire slip so he pushed it in. Once on the lift you see the problem. You could wobble the tire a good 2 inches. It is a miracle the owner didn't wreck the bike. Needs at least a new hub. Spokes were loose all over the rim. A tech showed everyone how to check them and told us that at least i at this dealer they check the spokes everytime a bike is brought in for service or regular maintenance. Time to check the sporty

 

good tip for us laced wheel riders!!

 

I just did mine on the Deluxe a few weeks ago. I found at least 4 that were seriously loose. There were a number that needed at least one full turn with the wrench.

I would say this maintenance item wasn't done enough by me until now. I now plan on checking these every couple of months at least.

Phil

 

I got one other idea on lace wheel safety...SELL THEM...my old ride had laced wheels, what a PITA, to clean and maintain. When I went and bought my new bike last spring, the dealer asked me if I had any ideas on what I wanted and first thing out of my mouth was anything without laced wheels! I know some people love there look but I just couldn't imagine having to spend the time on them anymore. BTW I have a 08 fatboy nice and easy to clean!

 

good info, thanks

 

I'll be checking mine before I roll it out of the garage, thanks...

 

stayed away from laced wheels as much as possible...primarily because of the PITA to clean/keep clean.

then I saw this thread: https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...ame-apart.html

below pic was the final push for me to swap out my rear rim for a 9-spoke (front already have chrome 9-spokes)

 

Man he must have been jumping cars or school buses with damage like that!!!

 

Actually that happens from loose spokes. You have a 700lb machines hitting bumps and stuff happens. The dealer will check the spokes at the 1,000 mile, 5,000 mile, 10,000 mile service and so on. But when you get the bike home from service check the spokes yourself. Nothing wrong with spoke wheels on a bike, they've been around for a hundred years. What's wrong is not checking them and I don't trust the dealer to do it for me.

 

I think that tightening your spokes could invlove morethan just hitting a few looser ones with a wrench. Never had spokes on a touring bike, but used to setting them on off raod bikes and am thinking that the proceedure should be the same. No flaming, I could be off base here, but I don't think so. Basically you tuned the spokes so each had the same tension adjacent an side to side to maintain a true rim. Troble is you need the exact tension on the first and then at least on the dirt bike, you would strike the spoke, tuning every spoke for the same pitch. Proper tension is extremely important, for example if 4 or 5 adjacent spokes on thesame side were looser or tighter than the adjacent side the rim would be pushed or pulled to even the tension on being subjected to stress = wheel out of true,