"Jim K" wrote in message
...
Rear 12" wheel lost a spoke somehow and the rest are variously loose,
bent etc. Wheel wobbles side to side quite badly but they still manage
to ride it! good practice for something!!

So is it worth messing to fix it and how? or can you e.g. buy a
replacement for a £reasonable amount?

Bike is a Raleigh bought new -- can't say I'm impressed.....I reckon
it's only done 2 or 3 miles ever

Cheers
Jim K

Easiest to get a new wheel, or scavenge one from the numerous dumped bikes
your kids will find in their travels, or from the local tidy tip.

If there are no big dents in the wheel and it has just worked loose, new
spokes are cheap and you can have a go at truing the wheel yourself. There
have been a number of progs on push bikes on tv this last week, and one did
go into a fair bit of detail on truing up wheels. Ideally you want to get
the wheel out and the tyre off and set it so you can spin it up held in a
jig so that you can monitor the side to side and up and down play as the
wheel rotates. It is quite fiddly though. and if the wheel has been badly
deformed, even if you can get it to spin true, the tension on some of the
spokes can make them quickly break again (been there!). Usually easier to
find another wheel in the long run, but not a bad thing to try if you like a
challenge.

S