How often do should a person tighten spokes? Only when wheel starts to go untrue or prophylacticly?
Spokes not very often…quite often on the nipples…
But seriously, no need to do this unless the wheel isn’t spinning true.
Hold your bike up and spin the wheel and look to see if it spins true before you ride. If it does you are pretty much good to go. Occasionally grab a couple of spokes at a time and squeeze a little. Go all the way around. They should all be roughly the same tension. If not they may need to be adjusted.
I tap my spokes with a wrench… to see if they all make about the same pitched sound. if one is low- it needs a turn.
how often? I dunno. maybe every 1000 miles or so. probably depends on your wheel.
How often do should a person tighten spokes? Only when wheel starts to go untrue or prophylacticly?
If the wheel is built properly and you didn’t smack the crap out of it, then ~never.
In that case if it goes out of true, either you are exceeding the loads the wheel was designed to take and spokes are going slack and nipples unwinding, or some part has yielded… ie permanently bent.
How often do should a person tighten spokes? Only when wheel starts to go untrue or prophylacticly?
If the wheel is built properly and you didn’t smack the crap out of it, then ~never.
In that case if it goes out of true, either you are exceeding the loads the wheel was designed to take and spokes are going slack and nipples unwinding, or some part has yielded… ie permanently bent.
+1, yeah basically I wouldn’t recommend picking up the spoke wrench unless there’s a problem to be solved or you’re likely to make things worse. Sure that problem could be a sub-par wheelbuild and spokes that loosen up over time or the more normal out of true conditions that happen over the miles. But spoke tension is not something to tweak without good reason and well built wheels can go many thousands of miles without issues if you don’t hit too many potholes or curbs.
-Dave
My front wheel has not been touched in years. It has proved its metal and will likely get scrapped before I have to touch a spoke.
My back wheel has been giving me issues of late (it is probably about done . . ) and has been on the truing stand several times this summer already. However, it was only the first time it really needed major truing. I have a truing stand so now that it is suspect, I tend to put it in the stand every week or so to check on it and once it is in there, I often end up doing a little tweaking but I’m truing way more often than it really needs it.
Very important… check to make sure the tension on all the spokes on each side is the same. Plucking and tone will work if you don’t have a tensiometer.
If you can’t get the wheel true with even tension, then the rim is likely bent and should be replaced.
How often do should a person tighten spokes? Only when wheel starts to go untrue or prophylacticly?
If the wheel is built properly and you didn’t smack the crap out of it, then ~never.
In that case if it goes out of true, either you are exceeding the loads the wheel was designed to take and spokes are going slack and nipples unwinding, or some part has yielded… ie permanently bent.
That’s my experience too.
jaretj
I check my wheels after any big hits, and true, tension as needed.
I also check wheels for out of true/tension randomly when the bike is in the stand or if I have a spare 5 min in the garage.
I like to keep things true and even in a proactive fashion as sometimes I forget the whacks the wheels take… and on the MTB (on a full rigid single speed) that happens more often and with more force then my other bikes…
So I would bet my wheels see a truing stand 4-6 times a year whether they neeed it or not, and add a few extra times due to road hazards.
No comments yet on how the OP managed to get the words “nipples” and “prophylacticly” in the same post?
Every time I pick up a spoke wrench I think to myself that this tool is a very good way to mess up a perfectly good wheel. If you do not know what you are doing it is money well spent to have someone who does true your wheels for you. If your wheels were built well, once a year or less take it into the shop and get a touch up. If you do mess with your wheels it is just as important to loosen the opposite side spokes as you tighten one side to cure a hop. Sometimes if only one spoke is loose you don’t need to loosen others. I have only had about 3 or 4 guys build my wheels for me in the last 50 years or so. I have a truing stand, but still have my “wheel guy” build them as they do lots of wheels a year and do a much better job than I could. For road,track, mtb, cross 29er 26er, I probably have 20 sets of wheels around the house at any given time.
If you do mess with your wheels it is just as important to loosen the opposite side spokes as you tighten one side to cure a hop.
In general that isn’t a good idea. The spokes won’t get tighter than they were originally, so you just want to tighten the one or ones that came loose.
If the wheel came out of true because the rim is bent… ie it would no longer be round and straight with all tension removed, then the wheel will always be weak and problematic unless the rim is replaced. If it is just a small amount you can usually get away with it, but don’t expect it to be as strong as it was originally. Your goal when truing is to have the spoke tension as even as possible.
Also note that carbon rims don’t yield/bend… or rather when you get to that point they break instead.
Like what the other guy side, I don’t touch the spokes but I try to work on the nipples as long as I can. It really helps…
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Every time I pick up a spoke wrench I think to myself that this tool is a very good way to mess up a perfectly good wheel.
As someone who worked at a shop for quite a few years… the need for some to tinker with their wheels who did not know what they were doing all too often turned a $15 wheel true into a $70 wheel rebuild.
Sometimes if only one spoke is loose you don’t need to loosen others.
No commenting on you G-man specifically, but if a wheel has one spoke loose only, I would suspect a crappy build over road damage. When I have seen this on old-school machine built wheels… its best to just get the wheel rebuilt rather then mess with fixing it. I have never had a one-spoke-loose-phenomenon happen on a hand built wheel, ever.
Love your screen name. Back when I was in the Corps in Iwakuni we had a dog named that…He was found under a no smoking sign. Brought back a memory of 30+ years ago.
Nosmo King is from an old Jackie Vernon bit from the 1970’s. I used to post under a different name. I was in the Corps back in the 70’s. Maybe we knew each other?
There are two schools of thought re wheel building. Some guys use locktite on the nipple threads and others use lube.
I prefer lube for several reasons.
- a properly built and trued wheel should arguably never need to be re-trued
- IF a wheel needs to be trued, one that’s locktited will be a bitch to get true again (you have to over tighten then undo slightly to take twist out of the spoke (particularly with bladed spokes)
- a lubed wheels is less prone to squeaking (at the nipple/rim interface
You only need to play with the nipples when there is a problem.
I had some wheels on the QR I bought from Slowman back in 1995. Velocity Aerohead wheels. The front wheel lasted 15 years before needing a new rim. That wheel stayed true the entire time, and had over 30,000km on it when I changed the rim. I never touched it. I loved that wheel.
I echo a lot of the sentiment regarding not to fix anything that isn’t broken. I’m the furthest thing from a wrench. When I bought my road bike in 2003, it always had wheel problems. Even when I bought a new bike in 2005, the same thing. I’m a bigger guy (200+ lbs) so maybe that had something to do with it. When I went to power in 2007 I had a wheel built by Rich Swaris (?) at wheelbuilder I haven’t had to touch it in 6+ years.
I think a good wheel can take a lot before fixing barring incident.
Ken Cottrell M.O.S was 5955. Navaids repair. Was in between 78-82