There is (or, at least, there was) a tool similar to the straightener mentioned for pulling the flat-spots out of rims, but I can't find any pictures of it - it was curved to fit around the outside of the rim and raised in the middle, where a screwed 'puller' could be hooked around the flat-spot on the rim and pull it out. The co-operative I volunteer at has one, I'll try to take a picture of it ...
The tool mentioned in another response is, in fact, a rim-saver and is used to press lumps out of the braking surface at the side of the rim http://www.bicycleresearchtools.com/
I did find a web-site peddling a rim-jack to push flat-spots out by expanding between the rim and the hub http://tinyurl.com/
Alan Lloyd
Schaumburg, Illinois, USA
Did shops use the VAR seat-chain stay straightener to pull dents out from rims with hops ?? Here is a picture from Sheldon Brown :
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/
Is there another picture of a similar tool on the web? I checked Park Tool and Bicycle Research but found nothing. In particular, I had heard in 1982 from my shop (Champaign Cycle in Champaign Illinois) that they had a "wire-puller" version of this tool to fix my Raleigh Grand Prix, after I threw the chain into the spokes and locked the rear wheel at roughly 25 mph.
I'm wondering what people use these days to pull out hops from bent rims, or have rims become so disposable that nobody bothers?
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA