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Finally made the investment of some hope hoops, cant complain, except after a few rides, as I'd expected, the spoke tension has loosend off considerably.
I have been reading about building and maintaining, but Im wondering if I can evenly tension the spokes by torqueing the nipples?
Anyone know if this works or if it doesn't equate to spoke tension?
Thanks
By torquing do you mean tightening? Yes, you need to tighten them - but probably best to get a shop to do it if these are your first wheels.
I'd be a bit disappointed if wheels I'd built loosened up, though.
by torquing i thing he means evenly with a torq wrench? and dont new wheels always need a little tune up after a few rides?
No, doing it with a torque wrench won't do it, you need a trueing jig.
I don't find I normally need to give wheels a tune-up if they're prestressed properly when built.
Take it to a shop, its not always a case of just giving every spoke the same 'quarter turn' etc.
Or have a go and get them to check tensions etc after
Google Sheldon Brown's wheel building guide, excellent read
after a few rides, [b]as I'd expected[/b], the spoke tension has loosend off considerably
As a couple of others have touched on, you shouldn't be expecting the spokes in properly built wheels to "loosen off", considerably or otherwise. Any chance you could get them back to the builders so they can finish them off properly?
Yeah I got a make shit truing jig, and Im not a complete novice. The truing part is not the problem, I guess I'm just being a bit picky, but for example the manufacurer suggests the 120-130kgf spoke tension, so is there anyway that that converts to a certain measurement of torque for the niple. Im just talking about bringing the spokes up to the right tension, not worried about truing the wheel!
Cheers
As a couple of others have touched on, you shouldn't be expecting the spokes in properly built wheels to "loosen off", considerably or otherwise. Any chance you could get them back to the builders so they can finish them off properly?
I LOVE it when people say this...
As an experienced wheelbuilder, I can tell you that spokes stretch. There, I've said it, they stretch! And wheels bed in. For the same reason that after the first 5 or 6 rides every bike shop will tell you to bring your new bike back in for a free first service, to adjust everything as it all beds in, you should expect to take your wheels for a quick re-true after the first few rides too as they need to bed in properly.
Good handbuilt wheels can last an age, looked after properly, for the sake of a quick re-true after the first few rides, I'd not chance it given that what you've experienced is perfectly normal...
There, I've said it, they stretch!
No they really don't. If they were, it'd mean they'd gone beyond the elastic limit, which would be very bad. What they do is bed in - that's partly a process of everything untwisting, partly a process of the spoke elbow and head digging grooves into the hub flanges - and, to a lesser extent, the nipples and rim deforming to match each other.
If the original wheel-builder had flexed and 'tinged' the wheels properly, you shouldn't be needing to retension the whole wheel for a good few months unless you're absolutely spanking it down black runs every other day.
Truing is obviously a different matter - clearly you can bend a wheel of any age if you whack it hard enough!
The main thing about any wheel maintenance is to make sure you've got time - about double what you think it will take. From painful experience, I know that rushing spoke key action usually ends up with a bit of a mistake magnified as you try to correct it - a bit like dead reckoning navigation.
You also need to pick your 'wheel-person' if you're taking it somewhere - my LBS had a guy affiliated to the shop who could true wheels and tension wheels. What he couldn't do was produce true [u]and[/u] evenly tensioned wheels!
If the original wheel-builder had flexed and 'tinged' the wheels properly, you shouldn't be needing to retension the whole wheel for a good few months unless you're absolutely spanking it down black runs every other day.
Totally depends on the rider and the use it's getting. I'll always destress and ping any new set of wheels several times before letting them go to their owner. But then I've built several sets for myself in the past too, and ridden them pretty hard, and they've got loose relatively quickly cos I know I've smacked them about a lot.
Sometimes spokes compensate for each other. The wheel may be true but adjacent spokes (on the same side) will be tensioned differently. In a properly finished wheel the differences in tension between each spoke on the same side should be quite minor (though whether the spoke is facing in or out at the hub makes a bit of difference). Anyway, if you are musical you can check the tension is fairly even by twanging adjacent spokes. There should be no big differences in pitch of the "note" produced as you go around the wheel.
(thinks: maybe you could true a wheel using an electronic guitar tuner!)
There's already an app to tension your Gates belt by pinging it - a tension meter app would be very cool 🙂
Thanks for the input people. I had thought about the guitar tuner a while ago as im pretty musically inept.
But i've got plenty of time, so have been tweeking the wheel every now ang again, in between loosing patience.
There's already an app to tension your Gates belt by pinging it - a tension meter app would be very cool
There's an article online about it, I've played with it a bit.
No app tho AFAIK.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/carbon-drive-bicycle-calculator/id438346486?mt=8
Not tried it myself...