Which Way Round For The Front Wheel?

We’ve received a question from Ron that seems on the surface to be simple, but it opens doors to many other questions and of course answers. Ron’s front wheel needs to go back on his bike and he wants to know which way round his bike wheel goes into his frame, not so straight forward as it seems

Question: Hi,
Nice website there! Can you help me? I have my front wheel off to do some fender repairs. How do I know which side of the wheel is which when I put it back on?? Can it be either way? I don’t remember which side was on the chainguard side and which was on the left side -my left. Does it matter?
Please help me it worries me. If it helps, the valve stem has a slight angle to it. Does this come from the rotation of the wheel causing the tube to shift? If so, should the stem then point forward? That was a clue I spotted. It is a middleweight Western Flyer from 62.
Thank You so much.
Ron.

Hi Ron,
It’s nice to hear when people like our web site and we do try our best to help as many people as we can with their bike problems.

Basically it doesn’t matter which way round your wheel goes back into your bike, but there a few things you might want to look for. You don’t say if the wheel has a quick-release on the hub, if it does then it should go on the opposite side from the gears, to match the rear wheel. Also, have a look at the tire it might have a direction arrow on the sidewall, it is important to always go with the correct tread direction.

The valve should be straight up and down, you tend to find the tube creeps round inside the tire and every time you see the valve pointing away from straight you should take the tire off and move the inner tube back to where it should be, if you don’t then the valve could rip from the inner tube and cause a puncture and could cause an accident, so don’t worry which way its pointing it should be straight.

I hope we have helped you with your problem and it sounds like you have a real old beauty of a bike there, Ron.