[karungguni]

I bought a used Tarmac Pro SL4 with a pair of Velocity A23 rims with Ultegra 6700 Hubs. I was going to use my Mavics so it really did not matter to me but the wheel is offset so there is about .5 cm of clearance on the non drive side and about 1.5 cm on the drive side. The Mavics are now trashed. I want to use 25cm tires but it does not look like there will be clearance. Not a wheel builder. Is the offset normal?

 

[rm -rf]

It should be centered. (Was the Mavic wheel centered? then it's a dishing problem with the Velocity wheel.)

Try mounting the back wheel reversed, with the cogs on the non-drive side. Is it off center the other direction?

If off center the other direction, the wheel isn't dished correctly to be centered. A bike shop can fix this easily.

If still off to the non-drive side, then the frame is out of alignment. I had a bike like that, with carbon stays, so it couldn't be bent back to center like a steel bike. I used a rounded jeweler file to "carefully, slowly" remove a slight amount of the aluminum dropout on the shorter side to allow the wheel to move back to the center. It only takes a paper thin amount of change at the dropout to noticeably move the tire.

I've seen quick releases dig into the softer aluminum dropout, causing the wheel to lock off center. If you push the wheel into the dropouts, and it's centered, then gets off when locked down, that might be the problem. Smoothing the surface of the dropout can fix this.

If you have carbon dropouts, I don't know if these fixes would be a good idea at all.

 

[cxwrench]

Check the q/r springs just for the hell of it. Make sure that both are on correctly, w/ the small end towards the hub and the large end out. If one is wrong it can get up into the dropout and cause the wheel to sit so it's not centered in the frame.

 

[karungguni]

Just to confirm I put the Mavics back on and they are centered. So it is likely in the wheel. The strange thing is that the shifting is fine when I go back and forth between the wheels given the amount of offset. I am wondering what my options are at this point. Am low on cash and just trashed $1000 wheels. Am 6'1, 195 lbs and ride hard about 700 miles a month so tend to break things. They seem to ride true. If the wheel is dished improperly do I risk failure? They are 36 spoke wheels so quite strong. The guy I bought the bike from is not responding to me for me to get in touch with the wheel builder.

 

[tlg]

The strange thing is that the shifting is fine when I go back and forth between the wheels given the amount of offset.

Not strange at all since it's the rim that is off center. That doesn't affect the cassette.

The guy I bought the bike from is not responding to me for me to get in touch with the wheel builder.

Why should he? It's not his problem. Take it to any wheel builder or LBS. It's really not a big deal.