With 20,000 miles on BlackMagic I’ll bet I have screwed around with the rear wheel alignment 40 times in 2 years. I just could not get it right since having new tires installed and losing the factory alignment pre-sets.
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By Keith owner of BlackMagic
With 20,000 miles on BlackMagic I’ll bet I have screwed around with the rear wheel alignment 40 times in 2 years. I just could not get it right since having new tires installed and losing the factory alignment pre-sets.
I tried every suggested method of aligning the belts and tires and nothing worked right. Either the belt squeaked or the bike pulled to one direction or the other when I took my hands off the handlebars.
That was until I discovered the $6.00 cure. I figured that the way the factory aligns the bikes is to clamp the two wheels in a jig until the back tire is aligned with the front, then they tighten up the back tires alignment bolts. A foolproof assembly line procedure. (This procedure depends on the type of bike stand or jack you use also)
So I invented a way to (almost) duplicate that procedure for short money. I bought two 3/4″ by 10′ pieces of straight electrical conduit at the hardware store. With the rear of the bike jacked up and the bike in gear I zip-tied the conduit to the rear tires. (You possibly could use bungee cords substitute for zip ties)
With this arrangement a very small adjustment on the rear adjustment bolts shows up as a very large movement of the conduit as it straddles the front tire.
Fiddle with your adjustment bolts until the conduit is the same distance on either side of the front tires and your wheels are now in perfect alignment!
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