I was happily riding to work this morning when I noticed that whilst travelling in a straight line the handlebars were skewed to the left quite considerably.
I got to work, put it on the centre stand and tried to align the bars "square" to the bike and tied them off in that position.
Got down on hands and knees and looked along one side of the front wheel and then the other and sure enough the wheel was not straight.
As the bike hasn't been dropped or bashed I'm assuming that the forks got twisted when I was trying to turn the bike on the boulder strewn Corrieyairack Pass. The front wheel was jammed against a stone as I was trying to turn the bars, could that have been enough to twist the forks in the clamps?
Everything seemed tight enough although I haven't checked torque settings.
As the rack appears to be central over the rear wheel I measured from handlebar to rack and checked that both sides were the same.
I then loosened the fork bridge allen bolts 1.5 turns and the spindle clamp bolts one turn and straightened the wheel by eye. Rechecked the bars to rack measurements and then re-tightened everything by the same amount.
It now seems to be spot on by eye. Is this good enough or should I have the dealer look at it? Do they have deadly accurate wheel alignment jigs like car workshops?
I got to work, put it on the centre stand and tried to align the bars "square" to the bike and tied them off in that position.
Got down on hands and knees and looked along one side of the front wheel and then the other and sure enough the wheel was not straight.
As the bike hasn't been dropped or bashed I'm assuming that the forks got twisted when I was trying to turn the bike on the boulder strewn Corrieyairack Pass. The front wheel was jammed against a stone as I was trying to turn the bars, could that have been enough to twist the forks in the clamps?
Everything seemed tight enough although I haven't checked torque settings.
As the rack appears to be central over the rear wheel I measured from handlebar to rack and checked that both sides were the same.
I then loosened the fork bridge allen bolts 1.5 turns and the spindle clamp bolts one turn and straightened the wheel by eye. Rechecked the bars to rack measurements and then re-tightened everything by the same amount.
It now seems to be spot on by eye. Is this good enough or should I have the dealer look at it? Do they have deadly accurate wheel alignment jigs like car workshops?
