Is it common to need alignment every few thousand miles?

[PMK]

I would think one or two turns out on a tension adjuster if you loose track while counting lets say to get back to an original setting would be more detrimental to an alignment than the poofteenth of a millimetre the naked eye could see on a tape measure when setting your targets. So yes fist of ham guys can screw it up. Mount a laser to the rear wheel and aim it across the garage then mess with the tensioners and you can measure the exact amount.
Ever considered your toe sticks v tape measure for the target placements?

Simply, you lost me with your reply. In simplest terms, if changing a rear tire, or removing the rear wheel for whatever on a Spyder with correct drive belt alignment, why would a person change the adjusters?

Please explain further, toe sticks vs target placement, are you meaning both utilize tape measures? If that is the intention of your words, please be very careful unless you have accomplished laser alignments based off the rear tire and toe stick alignments. Ironically, the toe sticks are very repeatable and easy to accurately read. Laser alignments require accurately placing 4 targets via multiple measurements with tape measures. Additionally, laser alignment does not account for camber, and that can alter the initial width dimension. Yes, for my ROLO setup, I made the correction tables to account for camber error.

[Cobwebs]

Simply, you lost me with your reply. In simplest terms, if changing a rear tire, or removing the rear wheel for whatever on a Spyder with correct drive belt alignment, why would a person change the adjusters?

Please explain further, toe sticks vs target placement, are you meaning both utilize tape measures? If that is the intention of your words, please be very careful unless you have accomplished laser alignments based off the rear tire and toe stick alignments. Ironically, the toe sticks are very repeatable and easy to accurately read. Laser alignments require accurately placing 4 targets via multiple measurements with tape measures. Additionally, laser alignment does not account for camber, and that can alter the initial width dimension. Yes, for my ROLO setup, I made the correction tables to account for camber error.

Well they wouldn't touch the adjusters if they knew what they were doing but how many know that by altering them they have just screwed up their alignment despite your claim it doesn't is how i was politely putting it.
You say a tape measure isn't accurate yet toe sticks are so I asked if you ever put it into practise.
You sit the person your aligning for on the bike to determine the camber width measurement if you can't measure the distance between two small dots on the floor and repeat that at the back wheel with tape or sticks give up and try rocket science or something.

[PMK]

Well they wouldn't touch the adjusters if they knew what they were doing but how many know that by altering them they have just screwed up their alignment despite your claim it doesn't is how i was politely putting it.
You say a tape measure isn't accurate yet toe sticks are so I asked if you ever put it into practise.
You sit the person your aligning for on the bike to determine the camber width measurement if you can't measure the distance between two small dots on the floor and repeat that at the back wheel with tape or sticks give up and try rocket science or something.

Why the negativity and attack towards me regarding tape measure devices?
The difference between toe sticks directly reading the dimension vs doing the laser alignment dots on the floor, and neither is difficult, simply measuring one dimension across hardpoints gives a direct dimension. Drawing dots on the floor at each front wheel, then rolling the Spyder back so that distance can be measured, followed by taking the distance of those two dots on the floor and subtracting the rear wheel width, and then measuring from the rear rims edge outward and putting two more dots on the floor, and then aligning vertical metal targets onto the dots at the back, and then getting targets aligned exactly the same width and squareness at the front, there is many chances to be that little bit off. If the alignment base setup is off, so is the rest of the work. Maybe only slightly, but it is not accurate.

Also, since laser alignments do not measure camber angle, and unless the camber angle is zero degrees, the two initial dots will not be the wheels true horizontal center plane dimension. This means that the targets will be set wider or narrower than the Spyders actual width dimension. This results in the targets not being correctly positioned and in turn, skews the alignment.

[Cobwebs]

Why the negativity and attack towards me regarding tape measure devices?
The difference between toe sticks directly reading the dimension vs doing the laser alignment dots on the floor, and neither is difficult, simply measuring one dimension across hardpoints gives a direct dimension. Drawing dots on the floor at each front wheel, then rolling the Spyder back so that distance can be measured, followed by taking the distance of those two dots on the floor and subtracting the rear wheel width, and then measuring from the rear rims edge outward and putting two more dots on the floor, and then aligning vertical metal targets onto the dots at the back, and then getting targets aligned exactly the same width and squareness at the front, there is many chances to be that little bit off. If the alignment base setup is off, so is the rest of the work. Maybe only slightly, but it is not accurate.

Also, since laser alignments do not measure camber angle, and unless the camber angle is zero degrees, the two initial dots will not be the wheels true horizontal center plane dimension. This means that the targets will be set wider or narrower than the Spyders actual width dimension. This results in the targets not being correctly positioned and in turn, skews the alignment.

Again your talking poofteenths of a millimeter, completely indiscernable on the road or tyre edge. Tweaking the adjusters for whatever reason and not expecting a negative with the tyre wear was the point I wanted to make for anyone wanting to learn how these things should be set up. Your statement confuses the issue for no good reason. None of which the OP's question was about so I stand by my original reply to him and am leaning towards most likely someone has goofed with the initial alignment and it's taken a few thousand miles to show itself with tyre wear.
Too many variables to bother with perfection in this case.